CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 


From  a  photograph  by  his  friend,  Dr.  S.  J .  Mixter. 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS  IN  His  STUDY. 


CERTAIN 
AMERICAN   FACES 

Sketches  from  Life 

BY 
CHARLES  LEWIS  SLATTERY 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

68 1  FIFTH  AVENUE 


c  c 


Copyright,  1918 
BY  E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

IN  England  there  have  been  many  collec- 
tions of  short  sketches  of  notable  char- 
acters in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
realm,  all  the  way  from  the  great  classic, 
Walton's  Lives,  to  Mr.  Arthur  Christopher 
Benson's  Leaves  of  the  Tree,  written  in  our 
own  time.  As  I  was  reading  with  intense 
pleasure  Mr.  Benson's  book,  it  came  over 
me  that  we  had  in  America  men  not  only 
of  equal  interior  power,  but  also  of  equal 
personal  charm,  worthy  of  a  similar  chron- 
icle; and  I  wondered  if  we  were  going  to 
allow  their  unique  traits  to  be  forgotten.  In 
spite  of  an  impression  to  the  contrary,  we  in 
America  are  far  more  reticent  than  our 
brave  English  allies:  it  is  painfully  difficult 


vi  PREFACE 

for  us  to  speak  of  the  ideals  and  the  heroes 
about  whom  we  care  most.  We  are  possibly 
a  little  too  sensitive  to  ridicule.  We  imagine 
the  smiling  critic  as  he  takes  up  our  im- 
aginary volume — we  think  we  hear  him 
murmur,  "All  very  well,  this  book;  but  it 
ought  to  be  called,  'Great  Men  Who  have 
Known  Me.'  "  And  forthwith,  though  we 
have  reverently  touched  the  hem  of  the  gar- 
ments of  the  saints,  we  allow  the  fragrant 
memory  of  them  to  fade  from  the  earth. 

Most  of  the  names  commemorated  in  this 
book  are  well  known.  Two  or  three  will  be 
strange  to  almost  every  reader:  I  have  in- 
cluded them  because  they  represent  a  group 
of  striking  personalities  of  such  real  power 
that  they  would  stand  among  the  renowned 
of  the  earth  if  the  appeal  of  a  conspicuous 
opportunity  had  come  to  them,  and  also  be- 
cause they  are  the  sort  of  people  who  inspire 
others  to  attainment  and  to  action,  while 
they  themselves  prefer  a  dimmer  light.  One 
of  the  heroes  is  a  boy,  his  life  here  finished 


PREFACE  vii 

before  its  promise  had  been  tested:  these  are 
days  when  we  know  the  greatness  of  youth, 
and  exalt  the  glory  of  the  unfinished.  We 
suspect  to  what  famous  tasks  the  Master  of 
All  the  Worlds  has  assigned  them  in  the 
blessed  Country  to  which  they  have  gone. 

As  one  generation  passes  and  another  be- 
gins, we,  who  have  known  the  old  leaders, 
lament  that  those  who  are  to  lead  the  future 
did  not  know  face  to  face  the  men  who  in- 
spired us.  I  remember  that  once  in  a  college 
class-room  the  lecturer  broke  off  from  his 
subject  with  the  remark  that,  when  he  was 
a  young  man,  he  and  his  friends  were  con- 
stantly looking  forward  to  a  new  poem  by 
Browning  or  Tennyson  or  Matthew  Arnold, 
a  new  essay  by  Carlyle,  or  a  new  novel  by 
Thackeray;  and  he  wondered  how  we  of  a 
duller  age  could  have  any  courage  or  spirit 
without  the  incentive  which  had  been  his. 
There  is  a  benevolent  motive,  therefore,  in 
the  attempt  to  prolong  the  lives  of  our  heroes 
and  saints.  We  would  have  them  flash,  if 


viii  PREFACE 

only  for  an  instant,  their  radiant  faces  upon 
the  oncoming  generation. 

C.  L.  S. 

GRACE  CHURCH  RECTORY, 

NEW  YORK, 
12  October,  1918. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

UNDER    the     name     of     Romney 
Reynolds  the  chapter  in  this  book 
on  Josiah  Royce  was  published  in 
The    Outlook    and    several    of    the    other 
sketches  were  printed  in  The  Churchman. 
To  the  Editors  of  these  magazines  grateful 
acknowledgment  is  made. 

Thanks  are  due  also  to  those  who  have 
allowed  the  reproduction  of  photographs 
and  paintings  for  the  illustrations,  especially 
to  Dr.  Mixter,  the  friend  of  Bishop  Brooks, 
who  took  the  intimate  photograph  which  is 
the  frontispiece,  and  to  Mrs.  Rieber,  who 
has  just  completed  for  Harvard  University 
the  remarkable  painting  of  The  Three 
Harvard  Philosophers. 


CONTENTS 

I.  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 3 

II.  ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY  .     .     .     .19 

III.  WILLIAM  JAMES  .7     .     .     .     .     33 

IV.  JOSIAH  ROYCE     ........       51 

V.  ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  ALLEN     .  67 

VI.  HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH 85 

VII.  BISHOP  WHIPPLE 101 

VIII.  Two  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE  .     .     .     .117 

IX.  A  BOY  I  KNEW 131 

X.  A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR 147 

XI.  SAMUEL  HART 161 

XII.  HENRY  VAUGHAN 175 

XIII.  A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME 187 

XIV.  BISHOP  HARE 207 

XV.  WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON                  .  225 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

PHILLIPS   BROOKS   in   his   Study.     From   a 

Photograph  by  Dr.  S.  J.  Mixter . .  Frontispiece 

ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY.  From  a  Pho- 
tograph by  Pach 22 

WILLIAM  JAMES,  JOSIAH  ROYCE,  and  PROFES- 
SOR PALMER.  From  a  Painting  by 
Winifred  Rieber 40 

ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  ALLEN  in  his 

Study.    From  a  Photograph 74 

HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH.    From  a  Painting 

by  Wilton  Lockwood 88 

BISHOP  WHIPPLE.    From  a  Photograph ....   108 

MARY  JOANNA  WHIPPLE.  From  a  Photo- 
graph   120 

MARY  WEBSTER  WHIPPLE.  From  a  Photo- 
graph   126 

A  BOY  I  KNEW.    From  a  Photograph  by 

C.  N.  Peterson 134 

CHARLES    NATHANIEL    HEWITT.    From    a 

Painting  by  his  Son 150 

SAMUEL  HART.    From  a  Photograph 166 

HENRY  VAUGHAN.    From  a  Photograph 178 

xiii 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACING 
PAGE 

FELIX  REVILLE  BRUNOT.  From  a  Photo- 
graph by  F.  Gutekunst 190 

MARY  BRUNOT.    From    a    Photograph    by 

H.  Bower 200 

BISHOP    HARE.     From    a    Photograph    by 

Elmer  Chickering,  Boston 210 

WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON.  From  a  Pho- 
tograph by  Henry  Havelock  Pierce,  Bos- 
ton and  New  York 230 


CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

I  CANNOT  remember  when  first  I  heard 
the  name  of  Phillips  Brooks.  As  a  boy 
I  recognized  that  his  name  stood  for 
distinction.  When  I  decided  to  go  to  Har- 
vard College  an  affectionate  old  bishop 
shook  his  head,  saying  that  he  wished  I 
wouldn't — for  he  thought  it  quite  likely  that 
my  boyish  faith  would  shrivel  and  die  in  a 
rationalistic  atmosphere.  It  wasn't  my 
father's  college,  but  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  was  meant  to  go  to  Harvard.  I  was 
thousands  of  miles  away  from  Cambridge 
when  I  was  pushing  my  decision  through. 
I  wanted  reinforcement.  It  suddenly  oc- 
curred to  me  that  Phillips  Brooks  would  tell 
me  the  whole  truth  about  the  matter,  and, 
though  I  had  never  seen  him,  I  wrote  him  a 
letter. 


4  CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

I  suppose  it  was  a  crude,  boyish  letter.  I 
have  often  wondered  what  I  said  and  how 
I  said  it.  But  I  cannot  recall  a  single  line. 
Doubtless  the  letter  lay  one  morning  on  Mr. 
Brooks's  table  in  Clarendon  Street  with 
a  score  or  two  of  other  morning  letters.  The 
other  letters  were  probably  from  English 
bishops,  or  American  poets,  or  important 
vestrymen,  or  statesmen,  or  writers.  They 
probably  said  grateful  words  about  some  ser- 
mon, or  sought  counsel  on  serious  problems 
of  life.  But,  if  one  may  judge  from  the 
quickness  with  which  the  answer  came,  the 
strange  boy's  letter  must  have  been  answered 
that  very  morning  with  the  first.  It  was 
no  brief  conventional  reference  to  a  cata- 
logue or  a  college  tract;  it  was  the  simple, 
straight  assurance  that  one  must  expect  to 
find  in  Harvard  College  what  one  would 
find  in  the  world — scoffing,  perhaps  blas- 
pheming, but  also  earnest  Christian  faith 
and  effort;  and  he  advised  the  boy  to  come 
with  the  hope  of  being  a  better  Christian 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  5 

man  for  having  gone  through  Harvard  Col- 
lege. And  then  he  added,  "Come  and  see 
me  when  you  are  settled  in  Cambridge." 

I  showed  the  letter  to  a  beloved  teacher. 
"Do  you  know,"  he  said,  "what  that  letter 
means?  Do  you  know  how  busy  that  man 
is?  Do  you  know  that  he  has  given  you  his 
best?"  I  didn't  then  know  what  the  best  of 
Phillips  Brooks  was,  but  I  knew  that  the 
letter  was  wonderful.  I  read  it  over  and 
over,  and  I  was  sure  that  Harvard  College 
was  for  me. 

From  that  time  till  he  died  Phillips 
Brooks  was  my  revered  master — though, 
kind  as  he  was  whenever  I  spoke  with  him 
face  to  face,  I  never  dared  to  follow  him 
except  from  afar.  Whenever  I  could,  I 
went  to  hear  him  preach,  or  speak  in  less 
formal  ways;  and  I  stood  off  in  some  ob- 
scure corner  to  look  at  him  when  he  plunged 
through  the  college  yard,  or  rose  above  a 
crowd  of  listeners  at  a  public  meeting,  or 
strode  down  a  Boston  street.  He  instantly 


6  CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

seemed  the  one  man  I  had  known  who  could 
take  a  legitimate  place  with  Plato  and  Dante 
and  other  greatest  men  of  all  time. 

The  first  Sunday  morning  of  the  term  I 
made  my  way  to  Trinity  Church  in  Boston. 
The  church  was  thronged,  and  I  was  given 
a  seat  back  of  the  pulpit  somewhere  in  the 
depths  of  the  chancel.  I  saw  Phillips 
Brooks  for  the  first  time;  I  heard  him  read 
swiftly  and  reverently  the  familiar  service. 
I  felt  the  thrill  of  the  vast  responding  con- 
gregation. But  when  the  preacher  mounted 
the  pulpit  and  preached  his  sermon,  I 
couldn't  hear  a  word.  I  knew  that  a  torrent 
of  words  was  going  forth  from  him,  and 
I  knew  that  hundreds  of  people  who  were 
in  front  of  him  were  being  stirred  to  the 
bottom  of  their  souls.  But,  bitterly  disap- 
pointed, I  was  as  one  outside  the  sound  of 
his  voice.  That  night  he  came  to  Apple- 
ton  Chapel  with  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Dr. 
George  Gordon,  and  others,  making  one  of 
the  short  addresses.  I  heard  him  then;  but 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  7 

the  address,  though  earnest,  was  slight;  and 
I  still  felt  that  I  had  not  heard  Phillips 
Brooks  preach. 

There  was  no  lack  of  opportunity  as  the 
years  passed.  How  many  of  his  sermons 
and  addresses  I  heard,  I  cannot  tell;  but  I 
know  that  he  fed  my  spirit  as  no  other.  I 
felt  the  goodness  and  the  love  of  God  as 
I  never  expected  to  know  them.  Through 
him  I  seemed  to  know  intimately  the  Christ 
who  was  to  him  evidently  the  most  real  of 
Masters.  I  knew  that  he  was  yearning  to 
win  the  people,  known  and  unknown,  before 
him,  to  a  discipleship  like  his  own.  I  did 
not  feel  at  once  the  need  of  going  to  see 
him,  though  he  was  easily  approached,  and 
he  had  definitely  invited  me  to  come;  I  sus- 
pect that  I  found  in  his  public  utterance 
the  unconscious  telling  of  his  own  experi- 
ence. I  looked  up  to  his  big  eyes  and  caught 
their  friendliness  for  humanity,  and  was  con- 
tent to  be  lost  in  a  sort  of  anonymous  friend- 
ship. 


8  CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

No  doubt  the  physical  presence  had  much 
to  do  with  the  impression  which  he  was  then 
forcing  upon  young  men.  It  was  not  only 
because  he  was  big,  though  that  had  its 
effect.  When  he  stood  alone  in  a  pulpit  he 
did  not  seem  uncommonly  tall,  because  he 
was  big  in  every  way.  Every  feature  of  his 
face  and  person  was  proportionally  big,  so 
that,  unless  one  compared  him  with  others, 
he  seemed  quite  normal.  The  power  came 
from  a  beauty,  a  sweetness,  a  light,  which 
radiated  from  his  face  whether  in  repose  or 
in  appeal.  It  was  the  fineness  and  integrity 
of  character  which  found  in  his  huge  form 
scope  for  interpretation:  that  is  what  made 
Phillips  Brooks  a  joy  to  earnest  youth  seek- 
ing a  guide  for  life  at  its  best. 

The  day  came  at  length  when  I  gathered 
courage  to  go  to  see  him,  when  he  kept  office 
hours  in  the  preacher's  room  at  Harvard. 
I  waited  my  turn  on  a  bench  in  the  hall  of 
Wadsworth  House,  feeling  more  and  more 
wretchedly  aware  that  I  hadn't  anything  to 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  9 

say  to  the  great  man.  But  the  caller  before 
me  came  out  of  the  preacher's  room  to  tell 
me  that  Mr.  Brooks  was  ready  for  the  next 
visitor.  And  in  I  tumbled,  to  find  an 
enormous  hand  closed  over  mine,  and  a 
mountain  of  a  man  smiling  down  into  my 
timid  face.  As  soon  as  I  sat  down  I  thanked 
him  for  the  letter  he  had  written  me;  he 
remembered  all  about  it,  and  gradually  pried 
open  the  shy  speech  that  clung  somewhere 
in  my  throat.  He  asked  about  a  building 
in  a  distant  city  which  we  both  knew.  I 
ventured  to  say  that  it  was  a  copy  from 
something  in  Canada.  Then  he  put  his  head 
back  and  laughed.  I  said  they  might  tear 
it  down.  Whereupon  he  pointed  out  the 
expense,  and  told  me  of  a  window  by  La 
Farge  in  Trinity  Church.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
La  Farge  came  to  see  it.  Said  Mrs.  La 
Farge,  "My  dear,  you  can't  afford  to  leave 
it."  Then  Mr.  La  Farge  answered  with  a 
groan,  "That's  just  it,  my  dear;  I  can't 
afford  to  take  it  out."  Whereupon  Mr. 


10          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Brooks's  big  head  went  back  again,  and  we 
laughed  together.  I  don't  believe  there  was 
anything  important  said;  only  I  carried 
away  an  impression  of  kindness,  and  I  was 
sure  that  if  I  really  needed  him,  I  could  go 
to  Phillips  Brooks  and  find  him  aware  of 
me,  and  caring.  I  heard  and  saw  this 
spacious  person  henceforth  with  a  sense  of 
ownership.  He  knew  me  just  a  little;  and 
every  day  I  was  getting  deeper  and  deeper 
into  him. 

The  years  passed,  and  I  decided  definitely 
to  prepare  for  the  Ministry.  I  spoke  to  him 
about  a  theological  seminary  quite  far  from 
Harvard  in  place  and  spirit.  I  said  I 
thought  it  might  be  wise  to  let  myself  be 
broadened  by  a  new  atmosphere.  Where- 
upon he  jumped  up,  and  glaring  down  at 
me,  said  sharply,  "Don't  you  think  you'd 
better  get  the  truth?"  It  was  a  flash  from 
the  magnificent  rage  which  was  always  burn- 
ing beneath  his  kindness  and  cheer.  I  saw 
it  once  at  a  college  dinner  when  a  suave 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  11 

toastmaster  said  that  there  was  one  man 
present  whom  he  had  promised  not  to  ask 
to  speak,  but  the  other  guests  were  under 
no  promise  and  could  do  as  they  liked — his 
name  was  Phillips  Brooks.  Whereupon 
Colonel  Lee  and  other  very  old  alumni 
leaped  to  their  feet;  instantly  all  the  rest 
rose  to  join  them  in  applause,  which  con- 
tinued till  Mr.  Brooks  was  compelled  to 
stand  up.  In  the  hush  that  followed  he  cast 
such  a  look  upon  the  toastmaster  as  I  think 
I  never  saw  on  any  face  before  or  since. 
"You  told  me  you  wouldn't,"  he  said  in  a 
husky  voice — and  I  think  we  all  grew  pale, 
not  quite  knowing  what  the  giant  might  do 
with  the  culprit  who  sat  across  the  room  at 
the  head  of  the  speakers'  table.  Then,  pulling 
himself  together,  he  said  calmly,  "Well,  I 
must  say  something;"  and  went  on  to  re- 
count the  impression  made  on  him  by  the 
fine  speeches  which  had  gone  before.  It  was 
the  memorable  speech  of  a  memorable  occa- 
sion. He  was  a  volcano  in  perfect  control; 


12          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

occasionally  he  let  the  fiery  lava  have  its 
way. 

Once  again  I  was  to  see  him  in  such  a 
humour,  with  the  revelation  of  its  meaning. 
In  due  time  he  became  &  bishop,  and  I  was  one 
of  his  candidates  for  the  Ministry.  He  took 
us  all  very  seriously,  insisting  that  we  write 
him  four  letters  a  year,  telling  him  about 
ourselves;  sometimes  when  he  visited  the 
theological  school  he  would  see  us  one  by 
one  alone.  He  asked  me,  on  one  of  these 
visits,  how  the  Ministry  seemed  to  me,  now 
that  I  was  definitely  pledged  to  it.  I  said, 
honestly,  that  I  felt  its  great  responsibility. 
I  suppose  I  looked  a  bit  downhearted.  In 
any  case  he  came  over  to  me,  as  if  by  violence 
he  were  going  to  shake  me  out  of  such  a 
mood:  "But  don't  you  see  the  joy  of  it?" 
he  demanded.  I  then  knew  the  meaning  of 
these  indignant  flashes :  they  were  the  index 
of  how  much  he  cared. 

After  all,  however,  it  is  not  the  memory 
of  his  letters  and  personal  conversation  which 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  13 

I  cherish  most.  The  debt  I  owe  him  is  from 
those  sacred  moments  when  I  sat  with  hun- 
dreds of  others  and  heard  him  preach.  I 
went  to  the  Convention  that  elected  him 
bishop;  I  shared  the  exultation  and  the  in- 
dignation which  all  the  youth  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood felt  in  that  summer  of  strange  op- 
position and  misunderstanding.  I  saw  him 
stand  in  Trinity  Church  to  receive  his  com- 
mission as  bishop.  Who  that  saw  him  rise 
from  among  the  seated  congregation  as 
Bishop  Potter  gave  him  the  charge  can  for- 
get the  glory  of  self-forgetfulness  shining  in 
his  beautiful  face!  After  that  I  went  to 
hear  him  in  London,  in  Boston,  and  in  Mas- 
sachusetts villages — and  I  saw  that  he  was 
constantly  weary,  so  weary  that  he  would 
often  stumble  as  he  read  his  sermons.  I 
wondered  if  the  power  were  waning.  And 
then  I  heard  him  during  his  last  Lent,  every 
Monday  in  St.  Paul's,  Boston;  on  those 
Monday  noons  he  seemed  to  be  beyond  his 
previous  best  in  the  confidence  of  his  Chris- 


U          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

tian  faith,  in  the  winning  power  of  its  pres- 
entation. He  afterwards  confessed  that 
these  addresses  cost  him  more  than  anything 
he  ever  had  done;  yet  we  with  the  airy  no- 
tions of  youth  thought  he  was  tossing  them 
off  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  He  was 
dying,  though  probably  not  even  he  knew  it. 
He  was  working  too  hard.  He  was,  like  his 
Master,  eager  that  men  should  live,  and  live 
more  abundantly.  It  was  a  consuming  love 
which  shone  through  his  incessant  preaching. 
It  was  the  supreme  expression  of  love  which 
the  Saviour  praised. 

On  a  Monday  in  January,  1893,  we  of 
a  certain  theological  seminary  were  going 
about  our  work  as  usual  when  the  word  came 
that  Phillips  Brooks  was  dead.  We  were 
stunned.  We  couldn't  believe  it.  We  wan- 
dered aimlessly  from  room  to  room  to  ask 
each  other  how  it  could  be.  We  told  each 
other  all  we  could  say  about  his  sermons,  his 
personal  conversations,  his  character.  We 
knew  as  we  never  had  known  before  who 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  15 

he  was.  All  the  impressions  of  the  past  were 
gathered  into  one  massive  whole,  and  we 
were  aware  of  a  stupendous  personality. 
The  machinery  of  the  school  stopped  for  the 
week.  We  went  to  his  funeral;  all  Massa- 
chusetts seemed  either  in  Trinity  Church  or 
in  Copley  Square;  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  people  seemed  to  have  one  heart, 
and  that  was  bleeding  for  its  noble  friend 
and  counsellor.  Some  of  us  reached  by  ac- 
cident the  Harvard  Yard  just  as  his  body 
was  being  borne  through  the  ranks  of  bare- 
headed students  lined  up  to  do  honour  to 
the  greatest  alumnus  of  the  university. 

That  was  Thursday.  On  Thursday  after- 
noons in  those  days  there  was  a  Vesper 
Service  in  Appleton  Chapel.  I  happened 
to  remember  the  service  and  went  to  it. 
Several  of  the  college  preachers  were  there 
to  share  the  service;  Dr.  George  Gordon 
went  up  into  the  pulpit.  I  remember  still 
how  my  heart  sank  as  I  thought  of  his  task 
that  afternoon.  "What  can  he  say  to  us," 


16         CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

I  said  to  myself,  "what  can  he  say  to  young 
men  who  feel  that  their  chief  teacher  and 
inspiration  is  withdrawn  from  their  sight?" 
In  perfect  simplicity  Dr.  Gordon  said  the 
best  word  any  one  could  have  said.  "If,"  he 
concluded,  "it  was  a  great  thing  to  have 
known  Phillips  Brooks,  think  what  it  must 
be  to  know  Phillips  Brooks's  Master!"  I 
am  sure  that  is  what  Phillips  Brooks  would 
most  have  liked  to  have  him  say,  for  Phillips 
Brooks  gave  himself  to  preach  Christ  to  men. 
As  we  went  away  in  the  darkness  of  that 
bleak  January  evening  we  were  comforted, 
more  convinced  than  ever  that  a  life  like  that 
of  our  dear  leader  could  not  stop  on  any 
Monday  in  any  January,  that  its  enormous 
energy  and  affection  had  burst  the  bonds  of 
death,  and  was  alive  for  evermore  in  the 
eternal  Christ  for  whom  and  in  whom  he 
lived. 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 

THERE  are  faces  so  familiar  to  one's 
memory  that  it  seems  impossible  to 
believe  that  one  has  never  spoken 
to  their  owners.  When  I  was  an  under- 
graduate at  Harvard  College  I  suppose  the 
most  revered  figure  who  passed  in  and  out 
of  the  college  yard  was  Andrew  Preston 
Peabody.  I  fancy  that  the  first  time  we 
saw  him  we  knew  instinctively  who  he  was. 
The  smiling  face  in  which  shone  rare  good- 
ness as  well  as  benevolence,  was  a  stay 
against  freshman  pessimism,  and  I  suspect 
it  held  many  a  youth,  inclined  to  be  wild, 
from  his  sin.  He  was  very  old.  He  had 
ceased  to  teach,  and  a  sermon  or  lecture  was 
an  infrequent  task.  He  continued  to  live  in 
the  house  near  the  Library  which  was  one 
of  the  perquisites  of  the  Plummer  Professor, 

19 


20          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

and  so  was  seldom  absent  from  the  college 
precincts.  The  merest  stroll  brought  him 
face  to  face  with  the  successive  generations 
of  students  of  the  University.  He  was,  in 
a  way,  to  all  kinds  of  men,  the  embodiment 
of  Harvard  College.  And  yet  few  of  us 
had  ever  spoken  to  him. 

Only  a  year  or  two  before  my  day,  "com- 
pulsory chapel"  had  ceased,  and  the  volun- 
tary system  (largely  under  the  inspiration 
of  Phillips  Brooks)  had  begun.  All  sorts 
of  anecdotes  clustered  around  the  head  of 
our  ancient  hero.  It  was  said  that  in  the 
old  days  of  compulsory  prayers,  if  the  Plum- 
mer  Professor  (who  was  the  Chaplain  and 
who  regularly  conducted  Prayers  and 
preached)  was  caught  preaching  beyond  a 
certain  fixed  time,  the  Chapel  was  filled  with 
gentle  tappings,  which  came  from  hundreds 
of  feet,  accidentally  touching  the  wood  of 
the  pews  in  front  of  them.  There  was  also 
a  rumour  that  once  in  a  prayer  he  had  said, 
"Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  to  thee,  O 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY        21 

Lord,  it  is  nevertheless  perfectly  clear  to 
us.  ...  "  And  his  courses  in  moral  phil- 
osophy had  been  what  the  collegian  of  that 
day  vulgarly  called  "snaps" — that  is,  courses 
of  lectures  easy  and  pleasant  to  listen  to; 
and  if  a  man  could  get  a  good  mark  in  any 
course,  he  was  fairly  sure  to  win  it  from  this 
kindest  of  readers  of  examination  blue 
books. 

There  were  lingering  tales  of  the  older 
days  of  Cambridge.  On  a  very  hot  day  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  making  his  way 
across  the  Cambridge  Common.  With  hat 
in  hand  he  was  drying  his  wet  forehead  with 
his  handkerchief.  And  so  he  met  Dr.  Pea- 
body,  who,  in  his  chronic  absent-mindedness, 
did  not  recognize  his  friend;  but  he  saw  the 
hat,  and,  assuming  a  beggar,  with  notions 
of  charity  not  then  outworn,  he  dropped  a 
few  small  coins  into  it,  and  passed  on.  At 
another  time,  when  cows  were  wont  to  ram- 
ble on  Cambridge  streets,  he  one  day  awoke 
from  his  absent-minded  dreaming  to  recog- 


22          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

nize  that  he  had  just  passed  a  lady  to  whom 
he  had  neglected  to  bow.  "I  must  not  be 
so  rude  again,"  he  said  to  himself.  In  a  few 
minutes  some  students  saw  the  genial  man 
wave  his  hat  gallantly  to  a  passing  cow.  Very 
absurd  and  trifling  tales  were  these ;  but  they 
served  as  pegs  on  which  young  men  could 
hang  their  affection  for  the  venerable  saint. 
I  can  remember  only  one  time  when  I 
heard  him  preach.  The  old  vigour  for  which 
he  had  been  known  was  gone,  but  the  sweet- 
ness was  as  winning  as  ever.  I  cannot  re- 
member a  word  he  said  that  evening  in  the 
forlorn  old  Appleton  Chapel,  but  I  can  re- 
member the  kind  eyes  looking  out  through 
the  square  gold  spectacles.  I  can  even 
remember  that  he  had  added  something  to 
his  manuscript  on  a  certain  page.  I  felt 
sure  that  it  was  a  page  preached  many  times, 
with  many  notes,  between  lines,  in  margins, 
and  on  the  back.  In  any  case  he  was  evi- 
dently looking  for  a  sentence  which  viciously 
eluded  his  search.  Without  the  least  em- 


Photograph  by  Pack  Bros. 

ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY. 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY         23 

barrassment  he  held  the  leaf  up  to  his  dear 
old  eyes,  turned  the  paper  first  to  one  side, 
then  to  the  other,  and  finally  upside  down; 
there  he  found  the  straying  sentence,  and 
joyfully  read  it,  with  slow  emphasis,  to  a 
waiting  congregation.  I  dare  say  that,  even 
at  ten  o'clock  that  night,  we  could  not  have 
told  much  about  the  sermon ;  but  we  all  knew 
that  it  had  done  us  good. 

Those  were  days  when  an  institution 
known  as  "the  College  Conference"  was  in 
vogue,  because  the  authorities  wished  to 
make  sure  that  the  rapidly  growing  numbers 
were  not  too  seriously  separating  the  under- 
graduates from  the  faculty.  Therefore 
eminent  men  gave  informal  talks  in  " Sever 
Eleven"  on  appointed  nights,  and  after- 
wards, sitting  back,  invited  any  student  in 
the  throngs  who  came  to  ask  questions  or 
talk  back.  It  was  an  effort  to  cultivate  in- 
timacy by  wholesale.  President  Eliot  came 
one  night.  He  told  of  a  graduate  who  ad- 
vised him  not  to  recommend  a  classmate  for 


24          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

a  certain  responsible  position.    "He  isn't  an 
honest  man,"  said  the  complacent  Pharisee; 
"he  used  to  write  my  themes  for  me  when 
we  were  in  college."     Dr.  Lyman  Abbott 
came,  explaining  his  theological  system.    A 
weird  student  in  the  <top  row  asked  Dr.  Ab- 
bott plaintively  if  he  were  not  a  Eutychian. 
"I  have  no  interest,"  said  Dr.  Abbott,  "in 
those  ancient  distinctions.     I   don't  know 
what  a  Eutychian  is."    "I  thought  so,"  said 
the  student  with  a  sigh — which  put  the  whole 
crowd   into   a   roar   of   laughter.      Colonel 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  came,  and 
talked  of  Literature  as  a  Profession.     He 
told  of  Thoreau,  commanded  by  his  pub- 
lishers to  remove  from  their  shop  one  thou- 
sand copies  of  "The  Maine  Woods,"  which 
wouldn't  sell.     At  dusk  the  weary  author, 
too  poor  to  employ  a  boy  to  carry  the  books 
for  him,  sat  down  in  his  attic  on  the  last 
pile  of  "The  Maine  Woods"  which  he  had 
brought  up  the  stairs,  whipped  out  his  diary, 
and  wrote,  "I  am  now  the  possessor  of  a 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY         25 

library  of  twelve  hundred  volumes — one  thou- 
sand of  which  I  wrote  myself."  That  was 
the  courage  needed  for  a  man  who  made 
literature  his  profession.  Governor  Wolcott 
(not  yet  Governor)  came,  at  the  request  of 
the  faculty,  to  explain  why  the  unpopular 
decree  had  gone  forth  that  every  student 
must  report  at  some  convenient  place  every 
morning  at  nine  o'clock.  This  was  to  make 
sure  that  men  who  had  unusual  freedom  be- 
gan their  day  betimes.  It  was  a  hostile  body 
of  students  which  glared  down  at  the  hand- 
some face  behind  the  desk.  Professor  Royce 
afterwards  said  that  the  superb  beauty  of 
the  pleader  was  what  won  the  rebellious 
audience  to  think  that  after  all  it  was  a  wise 
faculty  which  required  grown  men  to  say, 
"I'm  up,  Sir,"  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. Dr.  Peabody  came — and  I  can't  re- 
member his  subject  or  a  single  word  he  said! 
I  remember  only  the  benign  face,  beaming 
upon  us  all:  and  I  remember  the  reverent 
hush  upon  the  hundreds  of  men  who  filled 


26          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

every  inch  of  the  big  room.  I  think  we  did 
not  expect  to  hear  much,  for  we  knew  that 
the  old  man's  work  was  done;  but  we 
brought  our  reverence  and  love,  and  laid 
them  at  his  feet.  The  fact  that  we  knew 
enough  to  be  proud  of  him,  and  that  we  cared 
enough  to  let  him  know  it,  was  what  that 
evening  meant;  and  we  saw  the  face — always 
the  face — filled  with  joy  and  peace. 

Among  those  of  us  who  dipped  into 
theology,  it  was  always  explained  that  Dr. 
Andrew  Peabody  was  not  really  a  Uni- 
tarian. He  belonged  to  that  almost  vanished 
wing  of  Unitarianism  which  simply  revolted 
against  the  heresy  of  tritheism  in  Calvinism. 
We  found  him  wholly  orthodox  in  his  alle- 
giance to  the  Person  of  Christ.  Later  I  was 
to  read  his  essay  on  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
which  was  published  with  essays  by  Bishop 
Lightfoot  and  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbot  on  the 
same  subject.  It  is  twenty-five  years  and 
more  since  I  have  seen  the  book:  but  I  still 
recall  one  page  in  Dr.  Peabody's  essay.  Con- 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY        £7 

vinced  as  he  was  that  the  Gospel  was  written 
by  St.  John  the  Beloved  Disciple,  he  sought 
in  his  own  experience  a  reason  for  the  vivid- 
ness of  the  details.  How — people  had  asked 
— could  a  very  old  man,  like  the  traditional 
author,  have  remembered  such  trifling  in- 
cidents as  he  had  recorded,  which  had  hap- 
pened perhaps  seventy  years  before?  Dr. 
Peabody  said  that  he  could  understand  it  all; 
for  in  his  own  old  age  he  was  remembering  in- 
cidents of  his  youth  and  early  manhood  more 
clearly  than  events  which  had  happened  in 
all  the  years  since  then.  The  book  seemed 
to  him  like  an  old  man's  book.  I  have  read 
many  books  and  essays  on  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel and  its  authorship ;  but  I  have  never  read 
anything  which  seemed  quite  so  real  a  con- 
tribution to  the  difficult  controversy.  For 
he  was  a  Beloved  Disciple  himself,  and  his 
"heart  had  reasons  which  the  reason  cannot 
know." 

The  last  time  I  saw  Dr.  Andrew  Peabody 
was  at  a  college  dinner,  made  up  of  older 


28          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

alumni  with  only  a  few  younger  men.  One 
of  the  chief  guests  was  Bishop  Potter,  who, 
I  think,  had  just  received  a  Harvard  degree. 
Dr.  Peabody,  in  his  brief  and  simple  speech, 
had  referred  to  the  days  when  "the  reverend 
Bishop's  honoured  father"  was  Rector  of  St. 
Paul's,  Boston;  for  it  was  young  Peabody 's 
custom  to  walk  into  Boston  on  Sunday 
afternoons  to  hear  Dr.  Alonzo  Potter 
preach.  When  it  came  Bishop  Potter's 
turn  to  speak,  he  told  of  a  frequent  experi- 
ence after  the  Sunday  morning  service  when 
he  was  Rector  of  Grace  Church,  New  York. 
"That  person,"  he  said,  "who  exercises  the 
most  constant  and  critical  watchfulness  over 
my  preaching  would  say  to  me,  *  Henry, 
you've  been  at  it  again!'  'At  what,  my  dear?' 
I  would  say.  'You've  been  reading  Dr. 
Andrew  Peabody's  sermons  again!' '  The 
Bishop  straightened  himself  during  the 
laughter;  and  then  added,  "Gentlemen,  I 
had!"  As  every  one  clapped,  Dr.  Peabody 
wept  with  affectionate  gratitude  for  the 


ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY        29 

finely  turned  praise.  Then  Bishop  Potter 
grew  very  serious.  "I  often  hear,"  he  said, 
"discussions  about  Harvard  College,  with 
harsh  criticisms  of  its  rash  freedom,  its  pro- 
verbial indifference,  its  worldliness;  but  I 
always  say  that  as  long  as  the  Harvard 
undergraduate  looks  up  to  Andrew  Peabody 
as  the  typical  Harvard  graduate,  and  re- 
veres him  as  the  finest  fruit  of  the  univer- 
sity life,  Harvard  College  is  safe." 

That  is  a  judgment  which  every  Harvard 
alumnus  of  that  period  would  gratefully 
echo.  Though  I  never  spoke  to  Dr.  Andrew 
Peabody,  and  he  never  spoke  to  me,  I  keep' 
his  photograph  among  some  other  photo- 
graphs which  I  like  to  look  at  from  time 
to  time.  But  had  I  no  such  symbol,  I  should 
yet  remember,  as  if  I  had  seen  it  only  yester- 
day, the  face  of  an  old  man,  who  had  bravely 
and  lovingly  lived  his  life;  who,  without 
bitterness  or  envy,  saw  other  men  doing  his 
work;  and  who  faced  with  joy  the  coining 
of  the  new  and  brighter  day. 


WILLIAM  JAMES 


WILLIAM  JAMES 

BEFORE  William  James  had,  through 
the  publishing  of  his  Psychology,  be- 
come great  to  the  world  he  was  great 
to  his  pupils  in  Harvard  College.  Even 
those  who  touched  his  life  less  intimately 
than  in  the  class-room  felt  the  amazing  charm 
of  his  personality.  We  told  one  another 
stories  of  his  skill  in  being  frank  and  kind, 
as  we  experienced  his  honesty  and  his 
brotherly  love;  and  we  were  proud  that  he 
belonged  to  us  and  we  to  him.  It  has  been 
reported  that  his  friends  were  somewhat  im- 
patient because  he  was  constantly  finding 
the  thesis  of  some  immature  pupil  wonder- 
ful. We,  poor  things,  didn't  know  how 
many  geniuses  he  was  discovering  along  the 
dull  pathway  of  life;  and  for  days  we  trod 

33 


34          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

on  air,  because  he,  the  cleverest  man  we 
knew,  had  found  something  original  and 
striking  in  our  first  essay  at  philosophical 
thought:  we  thereupon  speculated  how  far 
we  might  go  from  such  a  brave  start.  It 
was  not  only  that  we  appreciated  him;  we 
listened  gaily  to  one  who  had  the  rare  dis- 
cernment to  appreciate  us! 

I  can't  remember  that  I  ever  heard  in  col- 
lege days  a  certain  story  his  brother  later, 
in  a  book,  told  of  the  boyhood  of  William 
James;  but  I  know  how  we  should  have 
gloated  over  it  had  we  known  it  then.  This 
story  was  of  an  afternoon  when  William 
was  going  off  for  an  excursion  with  his 
particular  cronies;  and  Henry,  a  trifle 
younger,  wished  to  go  too.  William  tried 
all  sorts  of  dissuasion,  but  Henry  pathetic- 
ally pleaded  that  he  must  not  be  left  behind. 
When  everything  else  failed,  William  saw 
that  imagination  alone  could  help;  so  he 
drew  near  to  Henry  with  wild  eyes,  and  said 
in  a  ghostly  voice,  "No,  Henry,  you  can't 


WILLIAM  JAMES  35 

go;  for  the  boys  I  go  with  curse  and  swear." 
That  settled  it;  Henry  knew  that  he  himself 
kept  no  such  company — so  he  stayed  at 
home.  One  instantly  sees  how  the  psy- 
chologist could  have  surpassed  the  novelist 
at  his  fiction. 

How,  too,  we  should  have  exulted  over 
the  story,  now  known,  of  his  first  choice  of 
a  life-work.  He  decided  to  be  a  painter,  and 
put  himself  to  learn  under  William  Chase. 
One  day  he  turned  sharply  to  his  master  and 
said,  "Mr.  Chase,  shall  I  ever  paint  great 
pictures?"  "No,"  was  the  answer;  "you  will 
paint  very  good  pictures,  but  not  great." 
"Very  well,"  said  the  pupil;  "I  won't  paint 
any."  And  he  turned  away  to  medicine  and 
psychology  and  the  inspiration  of  youth; 
thus  he  found  the  work  of  his  life. 

I  doubt  if  the  ordinary  interpretation  of 
such  a  story  would  have  seemed  to  us  true. 
He  would  seek  a  work  which  he  could  do 
eminently,  we  should  have  said,  not  for  his 
own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  his  fellows: 


36          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

he  would  have  liked  to  do  his  best  by  the 
world.  For  there  was  about  him  a  blithe 
unconsciousness  of  self;  a  crowding  interest 
in  his  subject,  a  generous  appreciation  of 
others.  I  have  heard  that  at  home  he  was 
wont  to  ask  everyone  else  to  stop  speaking, 
that  one  member  of  his  household  could  be 
fully  and  completely  understood:  "What 

was  that said?   Listen!"    He  most  of 

all  wished  to  hear.  His  was  the  gift  of  self- 
forgetful  admiration. 

We  never  tired  of  telling  one  another  how 
one  day  he  was  standing  before  a  blackboard 
demonstrating  some  large  truth,  cantering 
as  it  were  through  open  fields,  and  easily 
leaping  every  barrier.  We  felt  that  he  was 
going  to  solve  what  we  had  thought  never 
could  be  solved.  Then  suddenly  he  stopped. 
"That  is  as  far  as  I  can  see,"  he  said;  and 
sat  down.  There  was  about  him  a  trans- 
parent candour  which  won  us  heart  and 
soul.  He  never  glided  over  difficulties  or 
pretended  to  know  what  he  did  not  know. 


WILLIAM  JAMES  37 

His  absolute  truthfulness  sometimes  made 
trying  situations,  of  which  he  was  often  quite 
unconscious  at  the  time.  He  was  once  in- 
vited to  deliver  at  a  woman's  club  in  Somer- 
ville  a  paper  which  he  had  prepared  for  the 
young  women  of  Radcliffe  College.  To- 
wards the  end,  absorbed  in  his  task,  he  read, 

"And  now,  my  fair  hearers "  Suddenly 

he  checked  himself  with  the  very  serious  ex- 
planation, "Oh,  that  wasn't  meant  for  you!" 
A  woman  in  the  back  of  the  room  was  heard 
to  say  under  her  breath,  "He  might  have 
spared  us  that." 

The  chapter  on  Habit  in  his  Psychology 
is  commonly  placed  among  the  finest  lay 
sermons  ever  preached.  He  now  and  then 
dropped  advice  in  his  lectures  which  showed 
the  same  grasp  upon  the  practical  use  of 
philosophy.  He  had  a  way  of  stripping  off 
the  conventional  excuses  and  evasions,  and 
putting  the  inevitable  consequences  of  cer- 
tain acts  or  habits  in  their  exact  light.  He 


38          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

was  more  than  a  teacher  of  youth;  he  was 
a  guide. 

One  of  his  sons  once  told  me  how  his 
father  despised  stamp-collecting;  as  he 
looked  down  upon  the  small  heads  of  his 
boys  absorbed  over  a  stamp-album,  he  would 
murmur  with  contempt,  "The  nas;y  little 
things !"  He  was  giving  his  pupils  a  similar 
sense  of  proportion.  My  first  sense  of  the 
greatness  of  Franz  Hals  was  when  Mr. 
James  hung  in  one  of  the  philosophical  lec- 
ture rooms  a  fine  photograph  of  one  of 
Hals's  portraits.  He  was  always  opening 
the  windows  of  life  for  us.  Having  shown 
his  sons  what  he  thought  of  their  stamps, 
he  straightway  went  to  Boston  to  buy  them 
more! 

His  consideration  for  others  knew  no 
bounds.  My  friend  and  classmate,  Henry 
Washburn,  was  minded  during  his  the- 
ological course  to  seek  his  counsel  on  a  thesis 
he  was  writing  on  The  Priority  of  Faith 
as  a  Method  of  Discovering  the  Truth,  and 


WILLIAM  JAMES  39 

accordingly  presented  himself  at  Mr. 
James's  door.  The  maid  hesitated,  but  at 
last,  admitting  him,  led  him  up  two  flights 
of  stairs  to  a  barely  furnished  attic  room. 
Even  the  walls  were  unfinished.  It  was 
evidently  Mr.  James's  desert  to  which  he 
could  retreat  from  the  conventional  world. 
The  great  philosopher,  in  his  wrapper,  was 
sitting  in  an  old  wooden  rocking  chair,  his 
feet  in  another  chair,  swathed  in  blankets, 
a  picture  of  wool  and  of  misery.  But  he 
was  delighted  to  have  the  human  touch,  and 
joyously  began  his  tale.  "You  can't 
imagine,"  he  began,  "how  I  came  into  this 
plight.  A  pedlar  came  along  the  other  day 
with  what  he  called  'The  Elixir  of  Life'; 
and  he  talked  so  beguilingly  about  it  that 
I  bought  a  bottle  of  him.  And  this,"  he 
added  with  a  twinge,  "is  the  result."  And 
then  he  discoursed  on  the  priority  of  faith 
as  a  method  of  discovering  the  truth.  He 
knew! 

A  conspicuous  element  in  his  charm  was 


40          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

his  quick  humour.  Several  students  were 
one  night  dining  with  him.  As  they  went 
out  of  the  dining  room,  Mr.  James  suggested 
that  everyone  do  something  to  amuse  the 
rest.  So  one  said  that  he  would  sing;  an- 
other, that  he  would  impersonate  a  famous 
actor;  all  made  their  pledges  but  one.  This 
man  lingered  behind  with  Mr.  James,  say- 
ing with  a  blush,  "You  know,  Mr.  James, 
I  have  no  parlour  tricks."  Instantly  Mr. 
James  put  his  hand  affectionately  over  the 
fellow's  shoulder:  "Neither  have  I,"  he 
whispered  confidentially — "but  then  you 
know  there  must  be  some  onions  in  the  soup." 
The  humour  was  fused  with  kindness. 

And  how  kind  he  could  be!  Towards  the 
end  of  my  college  course  I  decided  to  try 
for  Honours  in  Philosophy.  The  first  re- 
quirement was  a  thesis  written  in  a  single 
day  upon  a  subject  given  in  the  morning. 
I  went  to  Professor  Palmer's  house  at  half- 
past  ten,  and  was  given  three  subjects  from 
which  I  chose  "A  Doctrine  of  Conscience." 


WILLIAM  JAMES  41 

After  a  day  of  rapid  writing  I  carried  the 
finished  thesis,  at  nine  at  night,  to  the  same 
door.  All  the  professors  in  the  philosophical 
department  were  to  read  it.  At  length  it 
came  back  to  me  with  a  note  saying  that  the 
thesis  was  satisfactory,  and  I  could  present 
myself  for  the  oral  examination.  That  was 
pleasant;  but  the  pleasantest  part  of  it  was 
that  I  found  written  across  the  cover  of  the 
thesis,  "I  say  Yes  to  this!— W.  J."  I  felt 
that  a  friendly  hand  was  held  out.  A  few 
afternoons  later  I  entered  a  Cambridge 
study  where  all  the  philosophical  professors 
were  gathered.  I  was  the  only  candidate, 
and  I  fancy  everyone  was  sorry  for  me,  as 
I  came  in  to  be  bound  to  the  stake  and 
burned.  The  tension  was  loosened  by  a 
laugh  from  William  James,  with,  "Here 
comes  our  victim!"  One  after  another  put 
questions  to  me  about  the  men  or  the  prin- 
ciples which  particularly  interested  him.  I 
have  forgotten  nearly  all  the  questions;  but 
one  of  them  I  shall  never  forget.  "Was 


42          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Descartes  first  of  all  a  physicist  or  a  meta- 
physicist?"  asked  Mr.  James.  "Oh,"  I  an- 
swered easily,  "a  metaphysicist."  Mr.  James 
looked  at  me  anxiously,  as  if  he  were  so  im- 
pressed with  my  learning  that  he  might  re- 
vise his  knowledge;  but  he  said  at  length, 
"Yes,  one  would  think  so,  wouldn't  one? — 
but,  you  know,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
wasn't."  Was  ever  a  confident  neophyte  let 
down  more  gently!  I  am  quite  sure  that  he 
gave  to  his  learned  colleagues  the  impression 
that  it  was  more  intelligent  to  be  over- 
whelmed by  an  enthusiasm  for  Descartes' 
metaphysical  importance  than  to  know  the 
humdrum  fact  that  Descartes  spent  most  of 
his  time  doing  something  else.  From  that 
moment  my  admiration  for  William  James 
passed  over  into  love. 

Yet  after  that  I  rarely  saw  him.  My  home 
was  to  be  far  from  Cambridge.  Now  and 
then  I  had  a  letter  from  him  with  the  same 
aptness  of  phrase,  the  same  kindness,  the 
same  humour;  though  I  was  only  one  of  the 


WILLIAM  JAMES  43 

thousands  who  touched  his  life,  he  let  me 
know  that  he  did  not  forget.  Thenceforth 
I  was  to  be  his  pupil  more  than  ever,  but 
it  was  through  his  books,  which  he  then  be- 
gan to  publish  with  frequency.  I  could  im- 
agine how  he  said  the  words  which  I  read 
on  the  printed  page.  His  personality  illu- 
mined his  marvellous  literary  style. 

It  was  a  red  letter  day  when  I  sat  down 
to  read  The  Will  to  Believe.  That  he 
chose  the  essay  with  this  title  to  give  its  name 
to  the  whole  book  revealed  a  dominant  char- 
acteristic :  he  himself  had  the  will  to  believe. 
A  good  many  hopes  and  confidences  which 
his  neighbours  had,  were  not  his;  but  he 
sympathethically  studied  them,  and  there 
was  no  trace  of  scorn  for  the  faith  of  others. 
He  had  the  will  to  believe  all  things  glad 
and  beautiful;  and  the  richness  of  his  own 
nature  grew  before  us,  as  we  watched  him 
standing  with  upturned  face  towards  the 
sun.  It  was  like  him  to  tell  the  story  of 
Henry  IV  and  Crillon  after  a  great  victory, 


44          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

when  Henry  cried  to  his  tardy  general, 
"Hang  yourself,  brave  Crillon!  we  fought  at 
Arques,  and  you  were  not  there."  To 
William  James  life  was  a  victory  at  which 
he  exulted  to  be  present,  and  he  liked  to 
catch  the  victorious  emotions  of  those  who 
fought  at  his  side. 

Then  came  The  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience.  Here  we  saw  his  profoundly 
religious  nature;  for  he  spoke  with  respect 
of  the  abnormal  and  emotional  types  which 
would  most  often  be  disregarded  by  profes- 
sional thinkers.  One  couldn't  help  feeling 
that  the  normal  type,  as  shown  in  the 
development  of  Christian  theology,  was  not 
sufficiently  described ;  and  one  would  deduce 
more  theology  than  Professor  James  de- 
duced from  the  mass  of  Christian  experi- 
ence; but  nothing  could  blind  one  to  the 
reverent  enthusiasm  for  the  varied  ways  in 
which  God  made  Himself  known  to  men. 
His  pupils  did  not  need  to  be  assured  that 
James  was  one  of  the  most  religious  men 


WILLIAM  JAMES  45 

of  his  time;  but  they  rejoiced  that  the  world 
also,  through  this  book,  recognized  the  fact. 
It  puzzled  him  when  any  of  his  pupils, 
aroused  to  religious  fervour  by  his  teaching 
and  example,  turned  for  ultimate  satisfac- 
tion to  association  with  organized  Christian- 
ity. While  his  colleague  and  friend,  Pro- 
fessor Royce,  was  steadily  increasing  his 
devotion  to  the  idea  of  a  Beloved  Com- 
munity as  the  goal  of  religion,  Professor 
James  was  increasingly  sure  that  all  high 
experiences  must  come  to  the  individual  man 
absolutely  alone.  He  once  said  to  a  young 
woman,  "Why  do  you  tie  yourself  up  to  the 
rules  and  conventions  of  a  very  conservative 
Church,  when  you  are  by  nature  the  freest 
and  most  spontaneous  creature  I  know?" 
She  answered  simply  that  in  the  very  best 
thing  she  knew  in  life  she  liked  to  share  the 
happiness  and  the  help  of  it.  She  said  that 
she  couldn't  imagine  religion  without  fellow- 
ship. He  was  much  interested  and  gave  his 
usual  rapt  attention  as  if  he  were  about  to 


46          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

be  converted;  but  he  said  at  length:  "Well, 
religion  is  for  me  an  individual  matter. 
When  I  think  of  religion  I  think  of  a 
desolate  heath  in  the  silence  of  the  night; 
the  cold  wind  is  blowing  over  my  bald  head ; 
one  star  is  shining;  and  I  have  the  conviction 
of  utter  isolation." 

Towards  the  end,  we  read  his  expositions 
of  Pragmatism.  This  doctrine  seemed  to 
those  who  had  known  him  years  before  in 
the  class-room,  thoroughly  consistent  with 
his  whole  life.  Brilliant  men  came  then  to 
Harvard  College  (as  they  have  always  come 
to  universities)  often  to  go  so  deeply  into 
speculative  thought  that  they  never  struck 
out  to  do  anything  for  the  world.  If  they 
went  to  such  waste  it  was  in  spite  of  William 
James ;  for  he  was  the  most  practical  of  phi- 
losophers. He  put  all  his  theories,  discov- 
eries, and  principles  to  work,  and  they  shone 
every  morning  in  his  face  and  in  his  quiver- 
ing action.  It  was  not  only  truth  which  he 
sought,  but  truth  expressed  in  life.  The 


WILLIAM  JAMES  47 

conservative  shook  their  heads:  they  shud- 
dered for  the  fate  of  the  ideal  and  the  ab- 
solute. All  that  was  whimsical  and  adven- 
turous came  out  in  James's  chivalrous  defence 
of  Pragmatism;  and  he  did  the  world  of 
theology  and  philosophy  unmeasured  good 
thereby.  A  hard  logic,  a  mathematical  cor- 
rectness, did  not  appear  any  longer  the  only 
goal  of  reflection.  Men  bowed  their  heads 
and  remembered  One  who  said,  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  James  was 
holding  up  to  thought  a  test  which  has  divine 
sanction. 

One  day  in  London,  in  the  Summer  of 
1910,  I  picked  up  a  morning  Times  to  read 
that  William  James  was  dead.  I  could  not 
believe  that  one  who  seemed,  when  last  I 
saw  him,  young  and  radiant,  could  have 
finished  his  earthly  career.  And  sitting 
there,  alone  in  a  great  city,  I  mourned  him. 
It  was  consolation  to  find  in  the  chief  daily 
paper  of  the  world,  far  from  his  home,  sev- 
eral solid  columns  of  appreciation  of  the  man 


48          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

who  lived  a  quiet  scholar's  life  in  the  Ameri- 
can Cambridge.  Evidently,  after  all  I  was 
not  alone  in  a  strange  land;  for  there  were 
men  in  all  the  earth  who  longed  to  read 
words  of  gratitude  and  praise  for  William 
James.  He  was  a  master  who  had  gained 
the  love  even  of  those  who  never  saw  his  face. 


JOSIAH  ROYCE 


JOSIAH  ROYCE 

I  FIRST  saw  Josiah  Royce  somewhat 
more  than  thirty  years  ago.  I  had  been 
living  in  the  far  West,  and  Chicago 
proved  to  be  the  most  convenient  place  for 
me  to  take  my  entrance  examinations  for 
Harvard  College.  One  hot  July  morning, 
forty  or  fifty  boys  from  various  parts  of  the 
West,  most  of  them  wholly  strangers  to  all 
the  others,  climbed  the  stairs  of  a  school 
building  on  the  North  Side.  On  the  top 
floor  we  found  the  room  appointed  for  our 
examinations.  Breezes  came  in  at  the  win- 
dows, and  also  great  flakes  of  soot  which 
blackened  our  hands,  and  our  blue  books — 
on  which  the  examinations  were  written.  We 
waited  nervously  for  the  examiner  from 
Cambridge.  A  large  person  with  bushy  side- 

51 


52          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

whiskers  came  in.  Sudden  silence  fell  on 
the  room :  evidently  this  was  the  executioner. 
But  he  passed  the  platform,  sat  down  at  a 
little  desk  next  mine,  and  took  out  twelve 
wonderfully  sharpened  pencils.  There  was 
a  rustle  of  relief,  as  we  all  took  breath  again. 
Just  a  moment  before  the  hour  announced 
there  appeared  a  short  man  with  a  large 
head,  looking  as  we  who  had  read  Greek 
history  thought  Socrates  must  have  looked: 
he  carried  a  leather  bag,  which  he  put  down 
on  the  big  platform  desk,  and  then  sat 
solemnly  behind  it.  He  frankly  looked  us 
over,  and  we  gazed  at  him ;  he  seemed  human 
and  humorous  and  kind.  Things  didn't 
seem  so  bad  after  all.  This  was  Josiah 
Royce. 

I  can  remember  only  one  sentence  which 
he  said  in  those  anxious  hot  July  days. 
Someone  went  to  the  desk  to  ask  him  a  ques- 
tion. Evidently  he  felt  that  whatever  in- 
formation was  imparted  must  be  given  to  all : 
so  we  heard  him  say  quite  clearly  in  his  quiz- 


JOSIAH  ROYCE  53 

zical  voice,  as  his  eyes  rested  on  a  tall 
chimney  outside  the  window:  "You  want  to 
know  what  is  meant  by  "the  composition  of 
a  word.'  Well,  the  composition  of  mortar 
is  lime  and  sand  and  water."  We  began  to 
think  that  if  we  ever  did  do  so  foolish  a  thing 
as  to  study  philosophy  (for  by  this  time  we 
had  pried  out  of  one  of  our  number,  who 
had  a  Harvard  Catalogue,  that  the  inquisitor 
taught  philosophy),  we  shouldn't  mind  at- 
taching ourselves  to  one  of  his  classes.  These 
were  days  when  the  elective  system  was  at 
the  height  of  its  newly  discovered  glory,  and 
we  had  a  sense  of  unusual  freedom  as  we 
inspected  the  faculty  and  their  wares. 

For  three  years  I  resisted  the  impulse  to 
elect  one  of  his  courses.  I  saw  him  con- 
stantly, and  felt  a  sense  of  ownership  in  the 
various  anecdotes  about  him  and  his  small 
boy,  which  the  students  told  one  another. 
This  was  the  boy  who  thwarted  an  afternoon 
tea  by  tying  crape  to  the  door-bell,  and  who, 
in  sprinkling  the  grass,  and  seeing  a  delight- 


54          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

fully  infirm  old  man  amble  by,  turned  the 
hose  on  Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  who 
thereupon  gave  up  his  call  on  Mr.  Charles 
Eliot  Norton,  and  was  carefully  tended  by 
the  boy's  anxious  parents.  My  only  memory 
of  this  brilliant  boy  was  meeting  him  one 
afternoon  at  the  college  pump,  where  a 
group  of  students  were  slaking  their  thirst. 
I  asked  the  boy  if  he  didn't  want  me  to 
pump  some  water  for  him,  whereupon  he 
answered  with  a  musical  drawl,  very  slowly, 
"No,  I-do-not-want-you-to-pump-my-waw- 
taw ;  I-will-pump-my-own-wawtaw."  We 
talked  of  our  Socrates,  as  he  made  his  way 
back  and  forth  through  the  college  yard ;  and 
we  were  proud  of  him  and  of  the  binding 
force  of  our  university;  for  he  resisted  a  very 
loud  and  lucrative  call  from  the  newly  estab- 
lished University  of  Chicago,  preferring 
bread  and  water  and  the  companionship  of 
William  James  and  George  Herbert  Palmer 
to  milk  and  honey  without  them. 

In  my  senior  year  I  sat  under  Professor 


JOSIAH  ROYCE  55 

Royce  in  a  stiff  course  on  the  History  of 
German  Thought  from  1770  to  1830.  It 
was  a  course  which  brought  out  the  rich 
variety  of  Royce's  learning  and  culture.  He 
discussed  the  two  Fausts  of  Goethe;  most 
of  us  learned  for  the  first  time  through  his 
exposition  of  Herder  what  was  meant  by  the 
modern  historical  method ;  we  tried  to  follow 
him  as  he  told  us  what  Kant  meant  in  the 
pages  of  the  Kritik  which  we  had  read  (or 
thought  we  read)  the  night  before;  we  loved 
Fichte;  we  laughed  at  Heine;  we  revelled  in 
Hegel,  and  found  out  how  much  more  we 
knew  than  he  in  the  end.  The  difficulty  and 
the  charm  went  side  by  side ;  and  though  we 
knew  that  we  were  listening  to  more  than  we 
could  appropriate,  some  of  the  insight  and 
the  wisdom  sank  in,  and  has  become  a  large 
part  of  the  foundation  of  whatever  earnest 
thinking  we  have  done  since. 

It  was  in  this  same  year  that  he  gave  in 
Sanders  Theatre  some  popular  lectures, 
which  were  afterwards  published  as  The 


56          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy.  The  ground 
covered  was  largely  the  ground  covered  in 
his  college  lectures,  and  most  of  us  went  to 
view  the  landscape  from  this  slightly  dif- 
ferent angle.  He  had  an  inspiring  way  of 
quoting  the  Bible,  illuminating  by  his  con- 
text a  familiar  passage,  which  seemed  to  say 
exactly  what  the  philosopher  of  the  evening 
wished  to  say  and  couldn't.  The  ladies  of 
Cambridge,  who  made  up  most  of  the  audi- 
ence, understood  these  happy  quotations. 
Now  and  then  there  would  be  a  flash  of 
humour,  as  when  he  described  the  boy  learn- 
ing to  write,  who  grasped  the  pen  in  his  tight 
fist,  and  then  put  his  tongue  in  his  cheek, 
and  at  length  wrote.  The  ladies  of  Cam- 
bridge nodded  to  one  another  over  these  sal- 
lies, and  understood  perfectly  how  delightful 
philosophy  was.  But  for  the  most  part, 
when  the  lecturer  sailed  the  seas  where  no 
figure  or  illustration  could  float,  there  was 
evident  discouragement  on  most  of  the  faces ; 
and  we  who  had  the  privilege  of  having 


JOSIAH  ROYCE  57 

learned  the  sage's  style  went  back  to  our 
rooms  to  laugh  impertinently  because  the 
ladies  of  Cambridge  were  taking  externally 
a  course  in  philosophy.  Well,  it  was  some- 
thing to  have  said  that  one  had  been  present 
at  these  memorable  lectures. 

After  my  graduation,  while  I  was  in  a 
professional  school,  I  took  another  of  Pro- 
fessor Royce's  courses.  This  was  on  Cos- 
mology, and  showed  in  an  amazing  way  his 
familiarity  with  Science.  The  basis  of  the 
course  was  Spencer's  book,  First  Principles, 
which  he  mercilessly  criticized.  We  read 
also,  among  many  other  books,  Joseph  Le 
Conte's  Evolution,  which  he  always  referred 
to  with  affection.  I  think  Le  Conte  had  been 
an  old  teacher  in  Royce's  early  life  in  Cali- 
fornia. The  whole  course  turned  on  the  fact 
that  because  there  was  an  unknown  element 
in  life,  it  was  not  therefore  unknowable;  that 
even  if  we  could  not  know  all,  what  we  did 
know  in  part,  we  did  know;  and  that  there 
were  two  methods  of  knowing:  one  by 


58          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

description  (like  mathematics)  and  the  other 
by  appreciation  (like  poetry,  love,  patriot- 
ism). We  who  had  known  the  Royce  of 
Goethe,  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Hegel  found  a 
new  Royce  in  this  course.  In  some  ways  we 
saw  more  deeply  into  his  wisdom,  perhaps 
because  we  were  getting  more  deeply  into 
the  knowledge  of  the  man. 

Pragmatism  had  not  then  found  definite 
expression,  but  in  his  devotion  to  the  Ab- 
solute, Royce  was  even  then  ready  for  the 
fray  which  was  later  to  engage  him.  One 
morning  he  began  to  describe  an  angel  who 
said  that  by  his  experience  two  and  two  make 
five.  There  was  a  pause.  We  expected  that 
Royce  would  go  on  to  explain  that  there 
might  conceivably  be  a  consciousness  quite 
unlike  our  earth-consciousness  in  which  two 
and  two  would  make  five.  But  we  were 
brought  suddenly  to  our  senses.  "If,"  said 
Royce  fiercely,  "I  met  that  angel — I'd  know 
what  sort  of  an  angel  that  was !" 

It  was  at  about  this  time,  when  he  was  giv- 


JOSIAH  ROYCE  59 

ing  his  assurance  of  his  trust  in  certain  fixed 
principles,  which  could  not  be  wholly  proved 
by  an  outward  demonstration,  but  of  which 
he  was  confident  through  his  inner  convic- 
tion or  intuition  or  valid  feeling,  that  he 
quoted  with  approval  a  small  girl  whose  pro- 
test he  had  heard  on  a  noisy  Boston  street. 
The  child  had  made  her  statement  of  what 
she  believed  a  fact.  Her  companions  had 
challenged  her.  They  jeered,  they  laughed. 
But  she  stood  her  ground  for  the  truth  as 
she  saw  it,  exclaiming,  "I  don't  keer — and  I 
don't  keer  if  I  don't  keer."  What  was  lack 
of  earthly  approval,  if  one  had  conviction 
like  that! 

After  this  I  saw  Dr.  Royce  only  occasion- 
aly,  at  the  meetings  of  a  philosophical  club, 
or  upon  the  street.  One  Sunday  afternoon 
I  met  him  on  a  Cambridge  street  car.  He 
looked  tired.  I  asked  him  where  he  had 
been,  for  he  was  carrying  a  large  travelling 
bag.  "Oh,"  he  said  demurely,  "I've  been 
in  New  York.  I've  been  giving  lectures  on 


60          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

philosophy  to  a  woman's  club  in  New  York 
every  Saturday  afternoon.  The  first  lecture 
was  a  respectable  philosophical  lecture,  but 
I  saw  that  they  didn't  understand  a  word  of 
it.  So  since  then  I've  been  giving  them  'guff' 
— and  they  think  philosophy's  great."  We 
laughed,  and  at  Harvard  Square  we  parted. 
I  think  I  never  saw  him  again. 

But  I  continued  to  be  his  pupil.  Living 
far  away,  unable  to  see  him,  I  planned  to 
read  his  books  as  he  sent  them  forth.  So 
I  came  under  his  spell  as  he  declared  his 
inspiring  Doctrine  of  Loyalty.  It  was  to 
be  his  theme  to  the  end  with  enlargements 
and  variations.  To  those  who  put  high  value 
on  the  Church,  his  words  about  loyalty  to 
the  Beloved  Community,  were  as  a  fresh 
revelation.  I  was  moved  by  his  Sources  of 
Religious  Insight.  Perhaps  the  profound- 
est  note  in  this  book  is  the  passage  about 
finding  God  in  the  depths.  We  come,  he 
said,  to  such  deep  places  that  we  can  only 
cry.  We  are  astonished  that  we  can  cry. 


JOSIAH  ROYCE  61 

And  then  we  become  aware  that  our  cry  is 
heard.  And  He  who  hears  is  God.  And 
so,  he  continued,  God  is  often  defined  for  the 
plain  man  as  He  who  hears  men's  cry  from 
the  depths.  One  has  no  right  to  see  in  public 
utterance  the  revelation  of  a  writer's  per- 
sonal experience,  but  I  have  always  won- 
dered if  this  great  confession  of  God's  pres- 
ence were  not  the  outcome  of  his  own  sorrow 
in  the  death  of  his  only  son.  If  so  it  was 
a  demonstration  of  his  own  doctrine,  which 
I  had  learned  in  his  class-room  years  before, 
that  truth  is  not  only  that  which  can  be 
described,  but  also  that  which  can  be  only 
appreciated  by  experience. 

His  two  volumes  on  Christianity  struck 
again  the  notes  of  loyalty,  especially  loyalty 
to  the  Beloved  Community.  The  part  which 
most  appealed  to  me  was  the  section  on  Sac- 
rifice and  Atonement.  Before  there  was  a 
world  war  to  teach  us,  he  revealed  the  eternal 
truth  in  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  sacrifice 
and  in  atonement.  Even  the  Church  had 


62          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

grown  silent,  or  at  times  had  tried  to  explain 
the  doctrine  away.  He  made  it  plain  even 
to  the  man  who  felt  no  obligation  to  ancient 
formularies.  The  lack  of  the  book  is  that  it 
makes  Christ  into  a  Beloved  Community, 
and  says  nothing  of  the  loyalty  which  the 
saints  have  delighted  to  give  to  Christ  Him- 
self— their  enthusiasm,  their  devotion,  their 
love  to  a  personal  Leader  and  Master. 

Apart  from  books  Dr.  Royce  was  a  living 
example  of  loyalty.  When  his  dearest 
friend,  William  James,  became  a  prag- 
matist,  Royce  like  another  St.  Paul  dealing 
with  St.  Peter,  "withstood  him  to  the  face." 
There'  was  for  Royce  an  absolute  Ideal, 
eternal  in  the  heavens;  and  our  fluctuating 
understandings  and  needs  could  not  change 
it.  He  was  also  perplexed  by  Professor 
James's  sympathetic  attention  to  mediums. 
There  was  a  tale,  very  likely  apocryphal, 
that  when  the  famous  Spanish  medium,  who 
had  won  James's  approval  of  her  genuine- 
ness, was  afterwards  caught  in  a  palpable 


JOSIAH  ROYCE  63 

fraud,  Royce  sent  to  James  the  following 
lines : 

Eny,  meney,  miney,  mo: 
Catch  Eusapia  by  the  toe. 
If  she  hollers,  that  will  show, 
James's  theories  are  not  so! 

Of  course  the  philosophical  difference  served 
only  to  make  the  friendship  stronger. 

The  most  vivid  instance  of  his  loyalty 
came  towards  the  end.  When  the  European 
War  began  he  tried  to  stand  aside  in  philo- 
sophic detachment.  But  as  it  was  borne  in 
upon  him  what  Germany  was  trying  to  do 
and  was  doing,  he  boldly  fled  from  his 
neutrality,  and  in  public  speech  and  in  pub- 
lished articles  declared  his  allegiance  to  the 
Cause  of  England  and  France  and  their 
Allies.  He  did  not  live  to  see  his  own  coun- 
try striving  in  the  high  cause  for  truth  and 
righteousness ;  but  it  may  be  that  his  ringing 
words  hastened  the  day  of  our  entering  the 
strife.  Once  more  he  demonstrated  that 
philosophy  is  practical  and  is  from  life  to 


64          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

richer  life.  Possibly  his  own  death  was  hast- 
ened by  the  intensity  of  his  plea:  he  may 
have  been  part  of  the  vicarious  sacrifice  by 
which  the  man  who  loves  righteousness  loves 
it  so  completely  that  he  lays  down  his  life 
for  his  friends. 

I  am  an  orthodox  person.  I  suppose 
Josiah  Royce  felt  neither  the  fetters  nor  the 
inspiration  of  orthodoxy.  But  he  was  a 
deeply  religious  man,  bent  upon  finding  God 
and  serving  Him  with  all  his  mind  and  heart 
and  strength.  He  took  me  out  of  the  closed 
rooms  which  religion  sometimes  cherishes; 
and,  quite  in  the  open  spaces,  led  me  to  gaze 
into  the  sky  and  far  away  to  the  melting 
horizon,  and  to  be  unafraid.  I  want  thus 
late  to  speak  my  gratitude. 


ALEXANDER  VIETS 
GRISWOLD  ALLEN 


ALEXANDER  VIETS   GRISWOLD 
ALLEN 

SOON  after  I  entered  Harvard  Col- 
lege I  began  to  know  by  sight  Dr. 
Alexander  Viets  Griswold  Allen, 
Professor  of  Church  History  in  the  Epis- 
copal Theological  School  on  Brattle  Street. 
Only  when  I  entered  his  classes  five  years 
later  did  I  come  to  know  him.  Meantime  I 
was  from  time  to  time  meeting  his  en- 
thusiastic pupils;  and  once  he  gave  to  the 
college  students  a  public  evening  lecture  on 
Reading,  which  I  heard.  This  lecture  was 
my  first  real  introduction  to  the  unique  quali- 
ties of  this  truly  great  teacher.  He  related 
to  us,  in  his  low  musical  voice,  his  own  first 
adventures  as  a  reader.  He  described  the 

67 


68          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

little  Western  College  where  he  began  to 
browse  among  the  books  of  the  college  li- 
brary. A  yellow-covered  magazine  attracted 
him.  It  was  the  Westminster  Review.  To 
the  timid  New  England  lad  from  a  country 
rectory  its  radicalism  was  amazing  and 
thrilling.  It  introduced  him  to  Mill  and 
Carlyle,  to  Coleridge  and  F.  D.  Maurice — 
he  thereupon  read  everything  the  library 
contained  of  them.  And  so  the  voyages  upon 
unknown  seas  were  begun.  He  made  his 
speeches,  studied  his  lessons,  and  deepened 
his  friendships,  but  the  real  romance  of  his 
college  life  was  this  learning  the  joy  of  read- 
ing for  its  own  sake. 

Here,  evidently  was  no  conventional 
theological  professor.  On  the  whole,  even 
on  that  night,  I  recognized  that  he  was  more 
of  a  humanist  than  any  man  I  had  known. 
I  had  known  distinguished  masters  who  had 
taught  me  Greek  and  Latin  and  English 
and  philosophy,  men  of  real  learning  and 
brilliant  power;  but  none  of  them  seemed  to 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ALLEN  69 

give  quite  this  same  human  sympathy  for 
the  genius  of  the  past.  The  German 
philologist  was  still  binding  the  consciences 
of  teachers  of  literature;  and  history  was 
over-worried  lest  it  get  a  fact  out  of  place, 
with  never  a  thought  of  its  meaning  in  any 
case.  Here  was  a  man  who  someway  escaped 
the  dragon.  I  awaited  the  day  when  I  might 
call  myself  his  pupil. 

When  that  day  came,  I  found  him  more 
than  a  humanist,  though  he  never  ceased  to 
be  a  humanist.  As  he  guided  us  through 
the  mazes  of  Church  History,  he  was  re- 
vealed a  prophet.  For  history  ceased  to  be 
a  series  of  accidents,  human  achievements, 
and  human  failures;  it  became,  under  his 
touch,  the  manifest  expression  of  God's 
leadership  in  human  affairs.  He  strength- 
ened our  faith.  He  did  for  us,  in  a  small 
group,  what  Phillips  Brooks  was  doing  for 
the  multitude.  Both  were  prophets  of  the 
Most  High. 

Besides  lectures  four  mornings  a  week,  he 


70          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

held  for  us  seminars  once  a  fortnight.  We 
all  looked  forward  to  both  lectures  and  semi- 
nars as  the  chief  pleasure  and  stimulus  of 
our  scholastic  life.  We  all  averred,  though 
we  might  formerly  have  sat  under  James, 
or  Norton,  or  Shaler,  that  we  had  never 
known  such  a  teacher.  Dean  Gray  was  wont 
to  say,  laughing,  that  it  was  no  use  to  have 
chairs  of  Theology,  New  Testament,  etc., 
for  Allen  taught  them  all.  And  the  jest 
was  the  truth;  such  is  the  privilege  of  the 
man  who  teaches  ecclesiastical  history. 
When  we  studied  the  Apostolic  and  sub- 
Apostolic  age  he  warned  us  that  the  only 
safe  commentary  of  the  New  Testament  is 
Church  History:  he  saw  the  mistake  which 
German-taught  theologians  were  making  in 
limiting  the  New  Testament  to  itself  and 
disregarding  its  subsequent  historical  con- 
text. When  he  reached  Athanasius  and  the 
Council  of  Nicsea,  we  found  his  living  pic- 
ture of  the  Council  not  a  whit  more  absorb- 
ing than  his  intricate  and  subtle  exposition 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ALLEN  71 

of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  That  and 
similar  doctrines  of  the  Faith  were  to  him 
no  cold  external  formulae,  but  had  fused 
themselves  into  his  experience:  he  spoke  of 
them  with  the  hushed  enthusiasm  with  which 
Dante  might  have  spoken  of  Beatrice. 

No  doubt,  too,  much  of  Dr.  Allen's  in- 
definable charm  came  from  his  voice.  The 
stranger  who  heard  him  in  a  large  church 
or  in  a  public  hall  was  inevitably  disap- 
pointed. "I  couldn't  hear  him,"  was  the  con- 
stant complaint  of  such  a  stranger.  He  him- 
self was  conscious  that  he  was  not  reaching 
his  audience  or  congregation,  and  the 
thought  bound  him  with  chains:  he  could 
not  get  what  he  called  his  freedom.  In  the 
lecture-room — just  large  enough  for  twenty 
students,  more  or  less — he  was  as  free  as 
the  April  wind.  He  brought  into  the  lecture- 
room  a  number  of  books,  perhaps  a  note- 
book; but  he  seldom  looked  at  anything  ex- 
cept the  faces  of  his  pupils.  He  once  con- 
fessed that  if  he  saw  an  intelligent  man  los- 


72          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

ing  interest  he  instantly  changed  his  tack. 
His  voice,  as  resonant  as  a  violin,  was  not 
merely  naturally  beautiful;  it  was  in  some 
way  tuned  to  the  minds  of  his  men.  It  was 
pleading,  all  unconsciously,  for  the  truth. 
His  sensitiveness,  concealed  ordinarily, 
vibrated  through  his  whole  being.  He  was 
perpetually  adjusting  his  message  to  the 
understanding  of  the  young  men  for  whom 
he  felt  a  loving  responsibility. 

Had  his  appeal  been  only  one  of  charm, 
we  should  not  have  called  him  the  master  we 
found  him  to  be.  With  the  charm,  the  con- 
sideration, the  courtesy,  was  bound  up  a 
startling  virility.  His  reproof,  his  mockery, 
his  just  irony,  were  sometimes  so  gently  ex- 
pressed that  the  man  did  not  at  once  awake 
to  their  biting  austerity.  But  when  he  after- 
wards let  the  words  into  his  mind  he  was  stung 
with  their  sharpness.  A  man  once  said  to 
him,  with  patronizing  condescension,  that  he 
hadn't  yet  decided  whether  he  should  come 
to  his  special  seminar  on  F.  D.  Maurice. 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ALLEN  73 

Dr.  Allen,  smiling  sweetly,  said  with  a  final- 
ity not  to  be  mistaken,  "Don't  you  think  it 
would  be  better  to  wait  till  you  are  asked?" 
Perhaps  we  learned  to  know  him  better  in 
the  seminars  than  in  the  lecture-room.  The 
evening  was  spent  in  listening  to  three 
papers  read  by  the  men.  After  the  reading, 
Dr.  Allen  made  his  comments.  First,  we 
exulted  in  his  appreciation.  He  saw  many 
high  lights:  we  thought  him  unduly  indul- 
gent when  he  saw  promise  in  a  neighbour; 
but  our  hearts  beat  fast  when  he  saw  hopeful 
things  in  ourselves.  He  was  alert  to  detect 
any  note  of  perception  or  originality.  He 
also  fell  upon  any  unfortunate  sentence 
which  seemed  to  him  unreal  or  cheap.  Once 
after  an  exhibition  of  priggish  niceness  in  a 
paper  he  said  apropos  of  nothing  at  aril, 
"Uneducated  people  use  bad  grammar;  half- 
educated  people  use  good  grammar;  really 
cultivated  people  use  any  grammar  they 
please."  He  would  follow  an  excessively 
modern  paper  with  the  remark,  "Well,  to 


74          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

leave  this  so-called  nineteenth  century  for 

a  moment ;"  or,  "Humanly  speaking — 

as  they  say  in  Brooklyn "   And  then  he 

would  go  on  to  talk  of  a  great  personality, 
or  a  wide  flung  movement  in  history,  or  a 
fundamental  doctrine,  bringing  to  bear  his 
knowledge  and  experience,  his  sympathy 
and  his  humour,  his  reverence,  his  adoration. 
Sometimes  we  went  to  our  rooms  as  if  we 
had  been  present  at  some  searching  and 
inspiring  service.  Our  hearts  had  been 
lifted  up. 

By  a  happy  accident,  I  broke  through  my 
shyness  and  began  to  call  upon  him  in  his 
study.  Later  I  elected  to  write  the  thesis 
for  my  bachelor's  degree  in  his  department, 
and  that  gave  me  excuse  to  see  him  some- 
what oftener.  And  what  hours  those  were 
when  he  gave  one  his  best!  It  seemed  a 
selfish  sin  to  be  the  only  listener.  But  as 
the  seminar  showed  a  new  aspect  of  his 
genius,  richer  than  that  shown  in  his  lectures ; 
so  his  private  counsel  still  seems  to  me  to 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ALLEN  75 

have  excelled  both  lecture  -and  seminar.  He 
too  was  shy.  He  had  deep  reserves.  Some- 
times he  let  himself  go,  and  told  the  secret 
enthusiasms  and  hopes  and  fears  of  life,  as 
he  could  not  have  told  them  to  more  than 
one  person  at  a  time.  I  don't  know  how 
many  sought  him  one  by  one.  I  suppose  a 
good  many  ventured. 

Till  he  died  his  letters  followed  me  in  my 
wanderings.  He  never  failed  to  speak  of 
my  work,  to  show  that  he  cared,  to  urge  me 
to  keep  up  my  reading  and  study  in  the 
rather  active  ministries  which  fell  to  my  lot. 
He  told  me  of  distinguished  foreigners  who 
happened  to  come  to  Cambridge.  He  told 
me  their  foibles  and  limitations,  their  con- 
tribution and  their  exceptional  values.  He 
commented  on  the  books  he  was  reading;  he 
told  me  what  he  was  writing.  There  never 
was  a  master  who  kept  a  distant  pupil  so 
patiently  by  his  side.  It  was  the  glory  of  a 
month  to  have  a  letter  come  from  him. 
Everything  went  better  for  it — preaching, 


76          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

study,  pastoral  responsibility,  joy  in  one's 
lot. 

Once  in  two  or  three  years  I  would  drop 
in  upon  him  for  an  afternoon,  as  I  prowled 
about  upon  a  seaboard  holiday.  He  was  apt 
still  to  be  in  Cambridge,  bent  upon  using 
the  summer  desert  (which  Cambridge  always 
becomes  when  the  University  closes)  for 
some  uninterrupted  writing.  Now  it  was 
Christian  Institutions,  again  it  was  the  Life 
of  Phillips  Brooks.  He  took  one  into  his 
confidence  and  showed  the  method  of  his 
work.  The  mystical  sense  was  always  with 
him.  He  would  confess  that  he  hadn't  in- 
tended a  book  to  be  what  it  was  evidently 
developing  to  be;  but,  he  said,  we  must  put 
aside  our  plans  and  do  what  we  are  led  to  do. 
His  reverence  for  Christ  was  paramount; 
after  that  he  had  a  consuming  reverence  for 
all  human  personality.  It  is  the  defect  and 
also  the  power  of  his  memoir  of  Brooks  that 
in  this  task  he  deliberately  stilled  his  critical 
faculty.  When  he  knew  so  much  as  he  knew 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ALLEN  77 

of  Brooks,  through  all  the  revelations  of  let- 
ters and  journals  and  sermons,  as  well  as 
through  his  own  friendship,  he  could  not 
descend  to  petty  analysis.  It  was  like  trying 
to  discover,  as  one  reader  did  try  to  discover, 
the  size  of  Brooks's  hat,  and  the  length  of 
his  shoes.  Dr.  Allen  took  his  hero  whole. 

One  of  the  amusing  symbols  which  he  kept 
about  him  in  his  characteristic  study — which 
was  uncommonly  filled  with  personality — 
was  a  double  cartoon  of  Gladstone  and 
Disraeli.  "Yes,"  he  would  say  as  a  visitor 
laughed  at  the  two  pictures,  "there  he  stands 
talking — the  country's  William — guarding 
the  treasure-chest;  and  Dizzy  sits  ineffably 
bored."  The  strange  relationship  of  these 
two  men  always  touched  his  humour.  When 
Gladstone's  Life  came  out,  he  read  it  dili- 
gently, though  not  increasing  thereby  his 
admiration  for  the  G.  O.  M.,  which,  to  tell 
the  truth,  was  never  exalted.  On  one  of 
my  visits  he  was  full  of  the  man  and  the 
period.  He  said  that  it  came  over  him  on 


78          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

a  certain  afternoon  that  he  would  like  to 
hear  the  great  man's  voice;  so  he  went  into 
Boston,  and,  dropping  into  a  phonographic 
shop,  asked  the  shopkeeper  if  he  had  a  record 
of  the  voice  of  Gladstone.  He  did  have; 
and  obligingly  invited  Dr.  Allen  to  listen  to 
it.  It  was  exceedingly  dim  and  muffled. 
The  shopkeeper,  seeing  Dr.  Allen's  disap- 
pointment, said  reassuringly,  "We  have  a 
record  here  which  is  very  fine,  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  like  that  much  better:  it  is  a 
record  of  the  voice  of  T.  Dewitt  Talmage." 
Dr.  Allen  thanked  him,  and  listened,  with 
an  inward  chuckle,  as  the  stentorian  tones 
rolled  and  rumbled.  It  rather  pleased  him 
that  the  shopkeeper  thought  that  he  was  the 
sort  of  person  who  would  be  glad  to  hear 
Dr.  Talmage. 

Sometimes  my  summer  visit  came  soon 
after  a  long  journey.  Perhaps  he  had  spent 
a  summer  in  Scotland;  then  he  would  have 
amusing  flings  at  the  shovel-hats  of  ecclesias- 
tical Edinburgh.  "These  Scotch  parsons 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ALLEN  79 

must  be  wonderfully  good,"  he  would  say, 
"to  transcend  the  depressing  effect  of  their 
hats."  Or  he  would  tell  of  the  Scotch  kirk 
where  he  heard  the  preacher  define  the  ob- 
ligations of  the  Sabbath.  "The  congrega- 
tion," he  said,  "the  whole  fifteen  hundred 
of  them,  sat  like  a  jury  in  a  box  to  see  that 
no  heresy  was  spoken." 

Of  all  my  summer  visits  to  him,  I  think 
the  most  exciting  was  the  first  I  chanced  to 
make  after  his  winter  in  Rome.  He  found 
in  it  all  the  history  which  he  had  been  study- 
ing for  forty  years.  He  followed  clues.  He 
confirmed  old  theories,  and  made  discoveries. 
His  imagination  made  him  live  in  the  Rome 
of  St.  Paul,  of  Hildebrand,  of  Leo  X. 
Moreover  he  found  congenial  friends  in 
Rome  to  whom  he  could  pour  out  his  soul. 
Perhaps  the  most  interesting  was  the 
daughter  of  the  historian  Froude.  And  all 
the  time  he  was  writing  letters  home  which 
intimately  recorded  the  high  experience  of 
a  lifetime.  A  deep  sorrow  came  that  winter, 


80          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

and  the  history  took  upon  itself  the  tragedy 
as  well  *as  the  confidence.  He  wrote  of  a 
childlike  faith.  Through  all  illusions 
and  disillusions,  he  trusted  the  Saviour  and 
His  promise. 

The  last  letter  I  had  from  him  was  written 
just  before  he  died.  He  told  me  that  in  his 
delirium  he  had  said  to  the  night  nurse  that 
he  wanted  me  to  edit  something  of  Origen's 
which  his  dream  warned  him  had  just  been 
discovered.  It  was  like  him  to  trust  an  old 
pupil,  believing  that  the  pupil  could  do  a 
task  which  he  himself  would  have  liked  to 
undertake.  He  had  been  asked  by  the  School 
Trustees  to  sit  for  his  portrait;  but  he  was 
too  ill  for  that.  In  a  way,  this  illness  carne 
as  a  blessing  in  relieving  him  of  the  em- 
barrassment of  "posing."  "Besides,"  he  said, 
"neither  Plotinus  nor  Dr.  Pusey  would  sit 
for  his  portrait.  Why  should  I?" 

When  he  had  gone,  many  a  man  lost  not 
only  a  master  but  a  dear  friend.  He  believed 
in  men,  who  were  neither  very  good  nor  very 


ALEXANDER  V.   G.  ALLEN  81 

clever;  his  generous  belief  kept  them  humble, 
rather  than  puffed  them  up.  He  gave  them 
confidence  in  their  task.  And  he  left  them 
always  at  the  feet  of  the  one  Master,  whom 
to  serve  was  his  own  joy  and  freedom. 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH 

FOR  forty  years  Henry  Sylvester  Nash 
was  one  of  the  most  familiar  figures 
on  the  streets  of  the  American  Cam- 
bridge. As  an  undergraduate  at  Harvard 
he  was  known  as  the  man  who  had  taken 
out  of  the  college  library  more  books  than 
any  other  man  who  had  lived  in  Cambridge. 
To  most  people  he  was  the  man  whose  face 
was  uncompromisingly  "plain,"  perhaps  the 
"plainest"  they  had  ever  seen;  yet  this  face 
was  so  compellingly  attractive  that  one  in- 
stinctively turned  to  ask,  "Who  is  that 
man?"  When  a  Boston  clergyman  heard 
the  theological  student  tell  with  bated  breath 
what  Dr.  Nash  meant  to  him,  the  city  rector 
was  inclined  to  smile  over  the  enthusiasm  of 
youth ;  till  he  himself,  at  some  club  or  service, 

v  85 


86          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

heard  Nash  in  one  of  his  exalted  moods, 
when  the  Spirit,  using  his  knowledge  and 
training,  declared,  through  a  countenance 
transfigured,  the  word  of  the  Lord — and 
then  the  city  rector  too  spoke  of  Nash  with 
a  catch  in  his  voice.  For  many  years  Dr. 
Nash's  followers  were  confined  to  his  small 
classes  in  the  Theological  School  in  Cam- 
bridge, and  to  the  little  congregation  to 
whom  he  ministered  on  Sundays  at  Chestnut 
Hill.  It  was  only  later  that  the  larger  world 
discovered  him. 

He  was  accustomed  to  have  men  under 
him  who  came  with  thorough  university 
training.  He  therefore  assumed  capacity 
and  willingness  to  work  hard.  When  I  was 
his  pupil,  he  spent  the  first  year  in  a  rapid 
reading  of  the  Greek  Testament,  with  in- 
troductions to  the  various  books,  and  special 
consideration  of  the  Synoptic  problem  and 
the  sources  of  the  Life  of  Christ;  the  second 
year,  we  worked  over  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  in  minute  detail ;  the  third  year  was 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH  87 

devoted  to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  I  remember 
how  in  the  first  year  he  threw  us  up  against 
the  most  difficult  critical  questions  of  the 
age.  We  wrote  nine  theses  that  first  year. 
The  first  was  on  the  Tubingen  Hypothesis 
— of  which  till  then  none  of  us  had  ever 
heard.  We  then  wrote  a  thesis  based  upon 
a  reading  of  the  New  Testament  to  find 
every  reference  and  allusion  to  the  Parousia: 
these  references  and  allusions  we  tabulated 
and  arranged,  that  he  might  have,  from  first- 
hand knowledge,  the  New  Testament  doc- 
trine. He  commanded  us  to  read  many 
"Lives"  of  Christ — which  he  designated — 
and  required  us  to  relate  in  a  thesis  the  point 
of  view  and  method  of  each.  Some  men 
were  frightened  by  the  robustness  of  his 
attack.  His  was  no  Sunday-school  course, 
shielding  our  faith.  We  were  given  the 
supreme  documents  of  Christianity  and  we 
were  set  to  find  their  meaning  and  their 
truth.  If  they  were  filled  with  hard  ques- 
tions which  might  later  unsettle  our  faith, 


88    CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

we  were  forced  to  face  the  issue  at  once, 
while  we  were  yet  only  candidates  for  the 
Ministry.  Dr.  Nash  treated  us  on  the  first 
day  of  his  course  as  grown  men  who  must 
know  all. 

It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  in 
meeting  whatever  difficulties  there  were,  we 
had  the  superb  help  of  Dr.  Nash's  own  faith. 
He  never  dodged  the  perplexities.  Some 
critical  questions  he  felt  to  be  settled.  Others 
he  held  in  solution.  Still  others  he  believed 
insoluble  in  this  world.  Once  when  a  pupil 
asked  him  what  St.  Paul  meant  by  a  certain 
phrase,  he  said  with  a  reverence  which  was 
from  the  heart,  "I  don't  know:  that  is  one 
of  the  questions  I  mean  to  ask  St.  Paul  when 
I  see  him."  Nash  was  at  his  height  in  his 
exposition  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  He 
struggled  to  give  us  all  that  commentators 
in  the  past  had  thought  of  this  passage  and 
that;  then,  with  this  historic  interpretation 
fused  with  his  own  best  thought,  he  gave  us 
his  interpretation ;  and,  beyond  that,  he  gave 


Painted  by  Wilton  Lock-wood. 

HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH. 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH  89 

us  the  profound  expression  of  his  own  faith. 
Then  it  was  that  we  would  look  up  from 
our  note  books — in  which  we  had  been  writ- 
ing furiously  to  get  every  word  down — to 
discover  that  the  face  of  our  dear  teacher, 
once  thought  exceedingly  plain,  was  radi- 
antly beautiful,  shining  as  the  face  of  an 
angel.  We  knew  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
upon  him. 

He  had  an  exasperatingly  difficult  style. 
He  used  technical  language:  this  was  easily 
acquired,  and  we  soon  learned  his  vocabulary. 
But  he  used  also  a  language  which  was  no 
one's  but  his  own.  It  was  hard  to  follow. 
Even  the  illustrations — which  were  apt  to  be 
very  odd  indeed,  sometimes  grotesque — were 
mystifying.  Pupils  and  others  sometimes 
thought  this  strange  style  an  affectation.  But 
it  was  not.  He  regretted  it,  and  tried  with 
all  his  might  to  acquire  a  simpler  vehicle  for 
his  thought.  To  a  certain  extent  he  suc- 
ceeded. But  only  measurably.  His  books 
fail  to  have  the  readers  they  deserve,  be- 


90          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

cause  even  an  intelligent  and  eager  reader  is 
baffled.  It  was  in  his  preaching,  finally,  that 
he  escaped  almost  wholly:  and  those  who 
heard  him  at  his  best  must  always  think  of 
him  as  one  of  the  great  preachers  of  the 
Church;  for  he  brought  one  up  to  the  high 
places  of  thought  and  feeling. 

After  I  had  been  in  the  Ministry  several 
years,  he  published  his  first  book,  The  Gene- 
sis of  the  Social  Conscience.  He  had  written 
me  that  it  was  coming  out,  and  I  longed 
to  see  it.  I  felt  that  at  last  the  world  at 
large  was  to  know  him  somewhat  as  his 
pupils  knew  him.  But  it  was  discouragingly 
hard  reading,  as  everyone  knows  who  has 
attempted  it;  I  knew  that  not  many  would 
have  patience  to  dig  for  the  genuine  gold 
within  it.  I  saw  instantly  that  it  was  a  great 
book:  it  stirred  me  to  write  sermon  after 
sermon;  and  it  must  awaken  every  reader 
to  expression  and  action.  I  trust  that  this 
book  may  live  to  inspire  seekers  for  the  truth 
through  the  years. 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH  91 

When  Dr.  Nash  spoke  at  a  Church  Con- 
gress, it  was  commonly  reported  that  his  was 
the  high  word  of  the  Congress.  He  struck 
the  spiritual  note,  and  fire  flashed  from  it. 
Not  long  before  he  died  he  was  invited  to 
New  York  to  speak,  along  with  Dr.  McGif- 
fert,  at  a  meeting  of  clergymen.  The  sub- 
ject was  the  Life  of  Christ.  Dr.  McGiffert 
spoke  with  the  clear  incisiveness  of  the 
critical  scholar.  He  told  the  somewhat  cold 
details  of  modern  research.  Then  Dr.  Nash 
rose.  He  had  not  come  with  a  definite 
speech  in  mind.  But  at  all  times  full  of  the 
subject,  he  broke  in  where  Dr.  McGiffert 
had  dropped  it,  and  went  forward  with  the 
positive  findings.  To  the  same  technical 
equipment  which  Dr.  McGiffert  had,  he 
added  the  prophet's  insight,  and  he  spoke 
out  of  heart,  as  well  as  mind,  his  loyalty  to 
his  Master.  Now  and  again  I  meet  a  man 
who  asks  me  if  I  remember  Nash  on  that 
day. 

Preeminently  a  theologian,  he  reached  out 


92          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

into  the  abounding  life  which  surrounded 
him.  Always  delicate  and  frail,  one  of  his 
chief  enthusiasms  was  foot-ball:  he  called  it 
the  most  spiritual  of  games,  and  he  watched 
it  with  the  same  devout  interest  with  which 
he  studied  a  new  book.  He  was  an  intense 
patriot.  The  School  suspended  lectures  on 
national  days;  and  he  always  urged  his  men 
to  read  American  biography  on  these  holi- 
days. He  was  religiously  democratic.  The 
son  of  a  poor  clergyman,  he  was  himself 
poor  all  his  days.  Someway  we  could  not 
have  imagined  him  rich.  He  longed  to  be 
at  one  with  all  the  brethren  of  Christ.  He 
would  sometimes  remind  us  that  we  ought 
not  to  shrink  from  the  thought  that  our  Lord 
was  accustomed  to  be  with  the  sort  of  people 
who  in  our  time  eat  with  their  knives.  If 
He  did  not  shrink,  neither  must  we.  He 
had  a  beautiful  chivalry  in  the  presence  of 
servants.  Without  departing  from  any  con- 
ventionality he  would  by  a  glance,  a  smile, 
or  the  slightest  of  words,  acknowledge  even 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH  93 

•\ 

at  another's  table  the  acts  of  service  by  which 
he  was  surrounded.  I  had  to  watch  him 
somewhat  narrowly  to  discover  these  tokens 
of  brotherhood;  but,  so  far  as  I  could  see, 
they  were  always  there.  They  never  ap- 
proached the  familiar:  they  were  stately, 
simple,  the  inherent  expression  of  a  real 
reverence  for  all  who  serve.  He  was  a  great 
gentleman,  who  made  many  other  gentlemen 
look  quite  cheap,  because  their  consideration 
and  courtesy  stopped  short,  in  that  they  had 
not  sufficient  imagination,  wit,  and  courage 
to  make  their  kindness  universal. 

His  family  was  his  joy.  "Our  children," 
he  wrote  me  one  Summer,  "are  teaching  us 
things  and  things."  A  man  told  me,  first 
with  laughter  and  then  with  tears,  that  he 
had  seen  Dr.  Nash  bringing  his  children 
home  late  one  evening  in  a  street-car  from 
some  excursion.  The  children  were  weary, 
and  the  youngest  was  inclined  to  weep.  This 
youngest  sat  on  his  father's  knee  while  Nash 
jumped  him  up  and  down,  singing  snatches 


94         CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

of  "Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,"  absolutely  un- 
conscious of  the  smiling  car-full  of  people. 

He  drew  from  an  inexhaustible  reservoir 
of  love  within  his  soul  which,  lavished  first 
upon  his  own,  he  gave  with  only  less  fervour 
to  his  pupils.  He  watched  over  us.  He 
wrote  us  letters  of  affection,  however  far  we 
wandered.  He  reminded  us  that  every  day 
he  remembered  us  in  the  Chapel.  The 
Chapel,  for  him  was  filled  with  the  men 
whom  he  had  taught,  whom  he  loved,  and 
for  whom  he  never  forgot  to  pray. 

The  last  time  he  stayed  under  my  roof  I 
asked  him  what  we  could  do  to  stop  a  cer- 
tain unhappy  tale  which  was  likely  to  make 
a  friend  first  miserable  and  then  useless. 
Neither  of  us  believed  it.  "I  heard  the 
story,"  he  confessed;  "but  I  locked  it  up  in 
my  memory  and  never  have  even  referred 
to  it."  And  then  he  went  on  to  speak  of 
sin.  "I  have  the  greatest  sympathy,"  he 
said,  "with  a  man  who  is  even  justly  accused 
of  such  a  crime.  I  think  how  easy  it  would 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH  95 

be  for  me  to  do  the  same  thing."  I  knew 
that  he  couldn't  have  done  it  for  all  the 
world;  but  I  knew  that  I  had  one  more  proof 
of  his  saintship,  in  that  he  cried  always,  "God 
be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner." 

Tender,  compassionate  as  he  was,  he  had 
his  fine  contempt.  I  think  he  despised  most 
of  all  the  people  who  were  always  thrusting 
themselves  forward  into  the  limelight,  to 
strut  up  and  down  with  their  insufficient 
wares.  He  gave  them  ridiculous  nicknames, 
and  laughed  at  all  their  tawdry  display.  In 
contrast  with  this,  he  never  considered  the 
size  of  his  audience  when  he  uttered  his 
prophecy.  One  day  a  woman  came  to  ask 
me  if  there  could  not  be  an  opportunity  made 
to  have  Dr.  Nash  give  to  considerable  num- 
bers certain  expositions  of  the  Faith  which 
she  and  one  other  woman  had  heard.  She 
said  that,  living  for  the  Summer  hard  by 
Dr.  Nash's  Summer  home,  they  had  gone  to 
ask  his  help  in  certain  intellectual  difficulties. 
Whereupon  he  asked  them  to  come  to  him 


96          CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

at  convenient  hours  and  he  would  talk  to 
them.  "Then,"  she  said,  "for  us  two  lone 
women  he  gave  what  were  more  than  any 
lectures  or  sermons  we  had  ever  heard.  He 
re-created  our  faith.  We  felt  wicked  to  be 
the  only  people  who  heard  him.  But  he  went 
on  talking  as  if  he  had  had  thousands  before 
him."  It  was  part  of  his  religion  to  give 
his  best  without  thought  of  numbers  and  ap- 
plause. Any  other  consideration  would  have 
seemed  to  him,  to  say  the  least,  unspeakably 
vulgar. 

His  fidelity  to  the  Theological  School  in 
Cambridge  was  one  of  his  outstanding  char- 
acteristics. A  larger  income  would  have 
been  acceptable  for  the  sake  of  those  whom 
he  loved  better  than  his  own  life.  Large 
parishes  held  out  welcoming  hands ;  a  diocese 
filled  with  his  warm  friends  was,  through 
them,  informally  offered  him.  But  he  did 
not  for  a  moment  consider  what  some  men 
might  have  called  a  wider  field.  He  spoke 
impersonally  of  the  folly  of  the  teacher  at- 


HENRY  SYLVESTER  NASH  97 

tempting  to  be  a  pastor:  a  man,  he  said,  must 
do  the  thing  for  which  all  his  life  long  he 
has  been  trained.  But  we  who  had  heard 
him  preach,  and  we  who  had  known  his 
shepherding  of  our  own  souls,  knew  how  the 
affection  of  either  parish  or  diocese  would 
have  kindled  in  his  loving  presence.  The  real 
reason  was  deeper:  he  could  not  help  know- 
ing what  he  was  to  the  School.  He  had  been 
its  servant  from  the  opening  of  his  Ministry ; 
he  would  be  its  servant  to  the  end.  He  could 
not  leave  it. 

In  the  crowded  Chapel  where  he  had 
prayed  day  after  day  we  gathered  to  praise 
God  for  his  life,  finished  in  its  earthly  stage. 
There  were  the  tokens  of  death.  But  it  was 
given  us  to  transcend  them.  He  was  glori- 
ously alive,  and  we  knew  it.  The  Light 
which  ,ve  had  seen  upon  his  face  had  received 
him  into  everlasting  habitations,  and  he  was 
at  home. 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE 

I  CANNOT  remember  when  I  did 
not  know  Bishop  Whipple's  name. 
Through  my  boyhood  I  thought  of 
him  as  the  great  friend  of  the  Indians,  work- 
ing for  them  in  Minnesota,  pleading  for 
them  in  Washington,  a  patriot  of  the  sort 
Washington  would  have  liked,  a  primitive 
patriot  who  had  survived  into  our  own  time. 
As  I  learned  more  of  him,  he  seemed,  rather, 
like  St.  John :  for  in  the  reports  of  his  words 
there  was  the  same  insistence  upon  the 
primacy  of  love.  This  double  judgment 
may  have  been  keener  than  I  suspected.  For 
the  Bishop  in  his  early  manhood  had  dipped 
into  political  life;  and  his  experience  with 
men  of  all  sorts  stood  him  in  good  stead  in 
his  later  missionary  labours,  when  he 

101 


102        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

bined  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  with  the 
gentleness  of  the  dove.  One  of  his  old 
friends  used  to  say,  "Bishop  Whipple  is 
ninety-nine  parts  St.  John,  and  one  part 
New  York  politician." 

At  last  I  saw  this  interesting  man  face 
to  face.  He  had  come  to  Boston  to  act  as 
one  of  the  presenters  at  Bishop  Brooks's 
consecration;  and  in  calling  upon  an  old 
rector  in  an  hotel,  I  found  myself  being 
presented  to  Bishop  Whipple.  He  was 
gaunt,  tall,  with  long  hair,  with  a  patriarchal 
face.  (I  think  Henry  Irving  must  have 
learned  from  Bishop  Whipple  how  to  walk 
as  Becket.)  He  passed  from  one  to  another, 
saying  his  word  of  affection  to  this  old  friend 
or  that ;  and  his  voice  could  not  be  forgotten. 
In  his  youth,  I  have  been  told,  this  voice  had 
a  marvellous  resonance  and  appeal:  to  the 
end,  though  diminished,  it  was  such  a  voice 
as  would  awaken  a  man's  thought  of  the 
open  fields  and  the  wide  skies. 

A  number  of  years  passed,  and  I  became 


BISHOP  WHIFFLE  103 

Bishop  Whipple's  neighbour,  in  the  Minne- 
sota community  which  for  more  than  forty 
years  was  his  home.  When  I  began  my 
work  there,  he  was  away,  and  for  several 
months  I  could  see  how,  even  in  his  absence, 
his  spirit  dominated  everything  in  the  town. 
It  was  not  only  that  people  were  proud  of 
him:  they  looked  up  to  him  as  to  a  father, 
and  all  seemed  to  have  some  personal  associa- 
tion with  him.  If  he  had  not  confirmed  them, 
he  had  said  a  kind  word  in  some  great  sor- 
row, or  he  had  preached  a  sermon  which 
helped,  or  one  had  years  before  worked  on 
his  Cathedral,  and  each  Saturday  night  the 
Bishop  had  paid  him  with  the  rest.  The 
Church  schools  as  well  as  the  Cathedral  had 
been  built  up  through  his  energy  and  persua- 
siveness. One  of  the  chief  benefactors  of  the 
boys'  school  had  said,  "I  will  not  see  that 
old  man."  But  he  was  not  old,  and  she  some 
way  did  see  him;  and  afterwards  she  re- 
ported, "When  he  had  talked  about  his  work 
for  half  an  hour,  I  was  ready  to  give  him 


104        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

every  penny  I  had."  The  Chicago  fire  fol- 
lowed hard  upon  the  pledges  she  made,  but 
from  the  burning  city  she  telegraphed  to  the 
Bishop  that  he  should  have  the  buildings  she 
had  promised  if  they  took  all  she  had  left. 
Such  stories  the  people  told  of  their  Bishop ; 
and  awaited  his  home-coming  as  they  would 
have  awaited  a  beloved  member  of  their  own 
families. 

His  sermons  always  had  the  spirit  of  his 
patriotism  and  the  spirit  of  his  devotion  to 
the  Indians.  He  nearly  always  made  some 
reference  to  our  earlier  generals  or  states- 
men, and  one  could  be  sure  to  hear  of  "our 
dear  red  brothers  of  the  forest."  There  were 
certain  recurring  phrases.  He  would  speak 
of  the  Holy  Communion  as  "the  try  sting- 
place  of  love."  Or  he  would  mention  some 
colleague  as  one  who  "gave  him  love  un- 
clouded by  a  doubt."  Making  much  of 
earnest  Christian  people  not  of  our  Com- 
munion, he  pleaded  constantly  for  Christian 
Unity. 


BISHOP  WHIFFLE  105 

To  know  Bishop  Whipple  in  his  most 
characteristic  leadership  one  must  have  seen 
him  among  his  Indians.  When  his  diocese 
was  divided,  few  Indians  were  left  under  his 
direct  care;  but  he  would  go  at  least  once 
a  year  to  Birch  Coulee.  On  Saturday  night 
he  would  gather  the  Dakotas  about  him  for 
religious  instruction,  as  preparation  for 
Baptism  and  Confirmation  the  next  day.  He 
spoke  to  them  as  to  children,  in  homely, 
practical  words  which  not  one  of  them  could 
fail  to  understand.  Because  they  told  him 
all  their  hopes  and  troubles,  he  knew  their 
sorrows  and  temptations.  He  was  their 
great  chief,  and  they  loved  him  as  only  chil- 
dren can  love  a  father. 

I  was  set  one  day  to  examine  a  solitary 
Indian  for  Deacons'  Orders.  If  the  Bishop 
loved  white  men,  there  was  no  word  strong 
enough  to  tell  his  devotion  to  the  Indians. 
On  this  particular  day  he  did  not  intend  to 
leave  the  fate  of  his  beloved  Indian  to  any 
chance.  He  met  me  in  the  hall,  warning  me 


106        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

that  the  candidate  had  been  dispensed  from 
Greek.  I  said  that  I  remembered.  "And 
remember,"  added  the  Bishop,  "that  he  is  an 
Indian.  You  must  ask  the  questions  sim- 
ply." I  gave  my  promise.  Even  so,  the 
Bishop  thought  it  well  to  accompany  me, 
and  sat  close  beside  me  as  I  put  my  ques- 
tions. I  was  encouragingly  inquisitive  at 
first,  asking  how  many  Gospels  there  were, 
who  wrote  the  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians, 
and  after  a  few  more  such  questions,  I  said, 
"How  does  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  differ 
from  the  other  Epistles  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment?" A  look  of  dismay  came  over  the 
face  of  the  handsome  Indian.  Without  look- 
ing at  the  Bishop,  I  could  feel  that  he  was 
growing  uncomfortable.  After  a  long  silence 
he  leaned  over  to  me  and  said:  "You  don't 
quite  know  how  to  put  questions  to  an  In- 
dian. Do  you  mind  if  I  ask  him?"  Of 
course,  I  begged  him  to  put  the  question. 
Whereupon,  with  a  radiant  smile,  which  told 
the  would-be  deacon  that  help  was  coming, 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE  107 

the  Bishop  said  assuringly:  "Now,  John, 
St.  James  doesn't  tell  you  what  you  ought 
to  think;  he  tells  you  what  you  ought  to  do. 
Now,  doesn't  he,  John?"  After  a  moment's 
hesitation,  with  fine  Indian  dignity,  there 
came  the  slow  reply,  "Yes,  Sir."  "You  see," 
whispered  the  Bishop  to  me,  with  a  look  of 
triumph,  "he  understands  perfectly."  Is  it 
wonderful  that  the  Indians,  and  all  others 
who  knew  him,  loved  him?  He  was  perpetu- 
ally coming  to  our  help. 

On  another  morning  I  was  summoned  to 
the  Bishop's  study  to  examine  some  white 
candidates  for  the  ministry.  We  sat  in  the 
pleasant  room  lined  with  books,  many  of 
which  were  presentation  copies  from  men 
like  Lightfoot  and  Westcott.  Hardly  any 
set  of  books  was  complete,  because  he  had 
a  way  of  urging  students  and  clergy  to  bor- 
row what  they  liked — and  alas!  many  books 
went  out  never  to  return.  Pictures  of  his 
friends  in  England  and  America  were  every- 
where. Bits  of  Indian  bead- work  were  hang- 


108        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

ing  over  chairs  and  screens.  The  room  could 
have  belonged  to  no  one  but  Bishop  Whip- 
ple.  Well,  there  we  sat,  and  the  young 
candidates  refused  to  be  frightened  in  so 
genial  an  atmosphere.  At  length  one  was 
so  far  from  worried  about  his  attainments 
that  he  sallied  forth  to  examine  the  Bishop. 
"Bishop,"  he  began,  "Bishop  Tuttle  has  lent 
one  of  our  churches  in  St.  Louis  to  the  Pres- 
byterians for  their  services,  because  their 
church  has  burned  down.  What  do  you 
think  of  that,  Sir?"  Bishop  Whipple  slipped 
still  farther  down  into  his  big  chair,  and  look- 
ing out  into  the  leaves  of  the  June  maples, 
said,  "I  have  all  I  can  do,  taking  care  of 
you  youngsters:  I  leave  Bishop  Tuttle  to 
take  care  of  his  own  diocese."  There  were 
no  more  diversions. 

The  more  strenuous  days  of  Bishop 
Whipple  were  over  when  I  knew  him.  His 
son  once  told  me  something  of  the  rigours  of 
the  early  days,  when  the  Bishop  on  his  visita- 
tions would  sleep  in  winter  bedrooms  which 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE. 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE  109 

were  not  only  cold  as  only  Minnesota  can 
be  cold,  but  had  perhaps  not  been  open  since 
the  previous  May.  Once  this  son  went  with 
his  father,  and  they  were  assigned  to  the 
same  room;  naturally  he  began  to  make  the 
usual  preparations  for  bed.  The  Bishop 
noticed  him.  "Charlie,  Charlie,"  he  said 
nervously,  "what  are  you  doing?  Keep  your 
clothes  on;  keep  your  coat  on;  keep  your 
hat  on — keep  everything  on.  Get  into  bed 
just  as  you  are!"  The  Bishop  never  got 
colds  through  indiscretion.  In  spite  of  in- 
cessant travelling,  he  never  ceased  to  fear 
that  he  would  lose  a  train.  He  must  have 
spent  in  railway  stations  what  would  make 
an  ordinary  lifetime.  His  sister-in-law  said 
to  him  one  day,  as  he  was  urging  Mrs.  Whip- 
pie  to  start  with  him  for  the  train  long  be- 
fore the  time:  "Brother  Henry,  why  do  you 
want  to  go  now?  You  know  she  never  loses 
a  train."  "I  know  it,"  he  said  in  despair, 
"that's  the  worst  of  it."  He  was  quite  as 
eager  to  begin  a  service.  He  was  always 


110        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

sitting  in  the  robing-room  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes  before  the  hour  appointed,  turning 
to  the  rector  every  moment  or  two  with  the 
cheerful  question,  "Now,  my  dear  brother, 
it's  time  to  begin;  isn't  it?"  One  had  to  keep 
telling  him  that  the  congregation  hadn't 
come,  then  that  the  choristers  hadn't  all 
come,  then  that  the  bell  hadn't  rung — and 
at  last  it  was  a  wise  rector  who  hid  himself 
till  the  right  moment  was  reached. 

He  was  one  of  the  most  generous  of  men. 
I  remember  that  one  morning  he  gave  me 
a  surplice  which  he  thought  would  be  con- 
venient for  a  visiting  clergyman.  In  the 
afternoon  he  sent  me  a  note,  asking  me  if 
I  wouldn't  give  it  back ;  for  a  missionary  had 
dropped  in,  who,  he  was  sure,  needed  it  more 
than  the  imaginary  visitor.  I  remember,  too, 
what  a  difficult  task  it  was  to  give  out 
church  notices  if  I  was  near  him  in  the 
chancel:  he  kept  up  a  rapid  series  of  whis- 
pered suggestions  as  I  was  talking,  "Now,  my 
brother,  tell  them  this;  now,  my  brother,  tell 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE  111 

them  that."    He  wanted  all  possible  invita- 
tions to  be  given  them! 

This  childlike  love  is  what  one  remembers 
most  in  thinking  of  him.  He  was  pleased 
and  grateful  for  any  word  of  appreciation. 
He  had  so  much  adulation  from  the  great 
of  the  earth  that  we  felt  that  he  did  not 
care  for  our  poor  words  at  home.  But  he 
did  care  deeply.  He  had  letters  of  frank 
affection  from  one  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury after  another,  or,  for  example,  from 
Mr.  Gladstone;  he  knew  nearly  all  the 
leaders  of  his  generation  in  the  English- 
speaking  world.  He  had  Mr.  Gladstone's 
walking-stick,  which  was  the  great  man's 
parting  gift  to  him  on  his  last  visit.  When  he 
returned  from  a  Lambeth  Conference  with 
a  new  degree  from  Oxford,  he  put  on  his 
beautiful  doctor's  gown,  at  Mrs.  Whipple's 
request,  to  show  it  to  his  sister-in-law,  who 
was  also  his  very  old  friend.  When  he  turned 
about,  Mrs.  George  Whipple  said,  "Oh, 
Brother  Henry,  don't  you  feel  grand !"  "Oh, 


CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Sister  Mary,"  said  he,  "you  do  say  such  un- 
comfortable things."  "Well,"  she  answered, 
"I  don't  want  to  spoil  you."  At  which  he 
winked,  and  said,  "That's  a  sin,  Sister  Mary, 
that  will  never  be  laid  at  your  door."  Being 
Scotch,  she  liked  the  compliment. 

He  was  in  truth  fond  of  colour.  When 
he  returned  to  us  after  a  long  absence,  he 
was  wont  to  invite  his  friends  and  neigh- 
bours to  his  house.  I  remember,  before  one 
such  reception,  he  came  downstairs  with  his 
usual  elegance  of  appearance,  winning  the 
evident  admiration  of  his  family,  till  they 
looked  at  his  feet,  and  there  they  saw,  above 
his  shining  low  shoes,  the  most  brilliant  of 
red  stockings.  The  ladies  instantly  decided 
that  he  must  change  them.  He  was  crest- 
fallen, but  obediently  withdrew.  In  a  few 
moments,  as  the  first  guests  came,  he  en- 
tered, altogether  in  black;  but  there  was  a 
gleam  in  his  eye,  and,  as  he  passed  me,  he 
whispered,  "I  have  on  a  pink  undershirt, 
anyway." 


BISHOP  WHIPPLE  113 

Days  and  months  went  by.  His  young 
Coadjutor  died,  and  he  did  more  work  in 
his  diocese  than  he  had  done  for  many  years. 
Almost  eighty,  he  seemed  to  have  the 
strength  of  a  young  man.  He  was  used  to 
thinking  himself  ill  when  the  doctor  thought 
him  fairly  well ;  and  he  would  refuse  to  leave 
his  bed,  till  suddenly  it  occurred  to  him  that 
he  must  keep  a  distant  engagement,  and 
from  bed  he  went  upon  long  journeys, 
evidently  none  the  worse.  When  his  pocket- 
book  was  stolen  from  him  he  said,  "I  don't 
mind  the  loss  of  the  money,  but  I  do  mind 
losing  those  excellent  prescriptions;  I  think 
I  had  twenty  in  that  pocketbook!"  We 
laughed,  and  felt  confident  that  the  elastic 
constitution  which  had  borne  him  through 
many  vicissitudes  would  bear  him  far  into 
old  age — especially  since  he  was  daily 
guarded  by  a  wise  and  watchful  love. 

But  the  end  was  sudden,  one  September 
night  after  a  brief  illness.  I  was  with  him 
all  that  night.  Indians  came  from  the 


114        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Dakotas  and  the  Chippewas  to  speak  their 
last  loving  farewells  in  the  familiar  house 
where  his  body  lay.  Men  strong  and  good 
whom  he  had  known  from  childhood  bore 
his  body  to  the  Cathedral,  and  throngs  of 
people  within  and  without  gave  thanks  for 
all  that  he  had  been  to  them  and  to  countless 
others.  I  never  heard,  "Jesus,  Lover  of  My 
Soul"  sung  as  I  heard  it  sung  that  afternoon 
to  old  St.  Martin's.  Then  the  Dakotas  sang 
a  hymn  in  their  own  tongue  within  the 
church,  and  the  Chippewas  sang  a  hymn  in 
their  language  outside  the  church.  When  the 
people  with  bowed  heads  were  moving  to- 
wards their  homes,  one  of  the  bishops  who 
had  officiated  said,  "You  buried  your  Bishop 
like  a  prince."  We  hoped  we  had;  for  he 
was  more  than  a  prince :  he  was  a  dear  friend 
and  counsellor,  a  most  loving  father. 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE 

THERE  is  a  peculiar  interest  in  two 
faces  on  a  single  canvas.  The  sug- 
gestion of  influence,  comradeship, 
and  love  makes  each  face  gain  from  the 
other.  For  no  sensible  painter  would  dare 
to  paint  two  faces  on  a  canvas  without  in- 
timating by  a  glance  or  the  touch  of  the 
hand  that  each  was  conscious  of  the  other. 
So  I  am  going  to  try  to  sketch  the  characters 
of  two  unusual  women  whom  I  knew  in  a 
Minnesota  town  long  ago. 

One  of  these  was  Mrs.  George  Whipple, 
the  sister-in-law  of  Bishop  Whipple.  She 
had  come  to  Minnesota  with  her  sister,  Mrs. 
James  Lloyd  Breck.  When  Bishop  Whip- 
pie  came  to  Minnesota,  his  brother  promptly 

117 


118        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

fell  in  love  with  Miss  Mary  Mills;  so  one 
of  the  happiest  homes  ever  seen  or  written 
about  came  into  being. 

When  I  knew  Mrs.  Whipple,  Mr.  Whip- 
pie  had  been  long  dead,  but  I  served  a  parish 
of  which  he  had  been  rector  many  years  be- 
fore, and  Mrs.  Whipple  gave  me  an  instant 
friendship,  which  deepened  with  the  years. 
Through  her  I  learned  to  know  the  unselfish 
and  whimsical  man  whose  memory  was  lov- 
ingly cherished  by  all  the  people  who  had 
known  him.  She  told  me  how  she  was  forced 
to  lock  up  her  clothes;  because,  whenever 
poor  people  came  his  way,  he  gave,  first,  all 
his  own  things,  then  all  hers,  so  far  as  he 
could  lay  hold  of  them.  To  hear  her  tell 
the  tale  you  would  have  thought  that  she  was 
a  flinty  person  dismally  resenting  the  indis- 
criminate giving;  but  no  wife  could  ever 
have  more  eagerly  aided  and  abetted  the 
criminal  generosity.  An  old  friend  in  mak- 
ing a  call  never  dared  to  admire  a  possession, 
new  or  old,  lest  at  the  first  favourable  oppor- 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE       119 

tunity  it  come  to  his  doorstep,  with  an  irre- 
sistible note. 

She  was  full  of  anecdote.  She  and  Mr. 
Whipple  had  lived  for  a  considerable  time 
as  missionaries  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands.  She 
never  tired  of  telling  stories  of  "T.  Nettle- 
ship  Honolulu"  (this  was  Bishop  Staley), 
Bishop  Willis,  and  the  other  English; 
Queen  Emma,  and  the  other  natives;  all  of 
whom  made  life  in  the  sunny  islands  divert- 
ing. She  and  her  Philadelphia  friend,  Miss 
Darlington  (together,  of  course,  with  Bishop 
and  Mrs.  Whipple),  had  everything  to  do 
with  the  early  traditions  of  St.  Mary's  Hall, 
a  school  for  girls  founded  in  Bishop  Whip- 
pie's  own  home.  Of  her  brothers-in-law,  Dr. 
Breck  and  Bishop  Whipple,  and  their  blithe 
and  heroic  days  of  laying  foundations  in 
Minnesota,  she  had  the  liveliest  recollections. 
In  the  vine-covered  stone  cottage  where  a 
large  part  of  her  life  was  spent,  clergymen, 
daughters  of  St.  Mary's,  and  many  others 
came  from  afar  to  see  her,  not  from  sense 


120        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

of  duty,  but  for  the  vivacious  and  illumina- 
ting talk  which  they  knew  they  certainly 
would  hear  there. 

She  at  one  time  edited  the  diocesan  news- 
paper, and  I  suppose  it  was  never  so  good 
as  when  her  racy  pen  told  the  news  of  Bishop 
Whipple  and  his  band  of  friendly  mis- 
sionaries. She  never  allowed  herself  to  grow 
rusty  in  the  literature  or  the  harder  knowl- 
edge which  made  the  background  of  her  cul- 
ture. She  was  quite  likely  to  decide  that 
she  would  read  again,  for  example,  all  the 
Waverley  novels — and  do  it.  When  she 
could  not  sleep,  she  told  me,  she  would  light 
her  lamp  and  in  the  night  watches  do  in- 
tricate problems  in  some  branch  of  mathe- 
matics. Such  were  her  pastimes  when  she 
was  slipping  past  her  eightieth  year. 

With  her  strong  Scotch  face,  framed  in 
her  ample  widow's  cap,  she  seemed,  to  those 
who  did  not  know  her  well,  rather  austere. 
The  silly  and  the  worldly  stood  in  awe  of 
her  for  their  good.  And  the  man  or  the 


MARY  JOANNA  WIIIPPLE. 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE       121 

woman  who  hesitated  in  decisions,  when  the 
right  was  plain,  understood  her  scorn.  In 
a  scholastic  house  which  had  once  been  her 
home,  a  portrait  belonging  to  the  house  was 
missing.  When  its  absence  caused  pain  to 
people  who  she  knew  should  not  be  troubled, 
Mrs.  Whipple  at  some  inconvenience  made 
a  friendly  call,  and  standing  before  the  wall 
where  the  portrait  had  hung,  said  sternly, 
"What  has  become  of  the  portrait  which 
always  hung  here?"  "Ah,"  said  the  master 
of  the  house  nervously,  "it  is  in  the  attic: 
ah,  ah,  the  ladies — you  know  the  ladies  al- 
ways have  their  way."  Mrs.  Whipple  drew 
herself  up.  "Not  in  my  house,"  she  said. 
She  was  wont  to  tell  the  story  with  glee; 
and  never  probably  knew  just  why  we 
laughed  so  hard.  I  remember  one  encounter 
which  I  had  in  connection  with  portraits.  In 
a  hall  in  memory  of  Mr.  Whipple  we  were 
collecting  portraits  of  those  who  had  con- 
tributed loyal  service  to  the  community.  One 
day  she  looked  at  me  in  silence  with  a  pierc- 


CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

ing  gaze,  as  if  she  would  read  just  how  far 
this  collecting  of  portraits  might  go.  Then 
she  said  suddenly  with  a  finality  not  to  be 
mistaken,  "If  you  ever  put  a  picture  of  me 
there  after  I  am  gone — well,  I'll  come  back 
and — and  visit  you!" 

This  austerity  was  the  thin  disguise  over 
one  of  the  tenderest  hearts  God  ever  made. 
She  planned  happiness  for  those  who  were 
not  happy.  She  saved  out  of  her  meagre 
income  a  proportion  which  a  princess  might 
envy,  that  great  causes  might  have  the  ut- 
most she  could  spare.  Having  no  children, 
she  adopted  two  little  girls  who  gave  her 
love  for  love;  one  died  as  a  child,  the  other 
in  the  maturity  of  a  brilliant  womanhood. 
Then  younger  women  gave  her  the  devotion 
which  daughters  might  have  shown,  and  she 
was  not  alone.  Moreover  her  love  went  out 
to  the  dumb  beasts.  When  a  neighbour  kept 
a  young  dog  in  a  box  and  (according  to  Mrs. 
Whipple's  observant  eye)  forgot  to  feed  it 
for  days  at  a  time,  Mrs.  Whipple  would 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE       123 

wander  aimlessly  in  the  early  morning — 
hours  before  the  neighbours'  curtains  were 
drawn — and  give  the  poor  beast  food  and 
water  for  the  day.  The  cats  and  dogs 
knew  her  susceptibilities,  and  when  deserted 
would  come,  dilapidated  and  forlorn,  to  her 
porch.  In  they  were  brought,  tended,  and 
fed  as  babies  in  a  nursery.  If  no  owner 
appeared,  they  were  given  later,  sleek  and 
fat,  to  boys  and  girls  who  were  thought  to 
deserve  them,  and  who  would  surely  be  kind. 
She  always  had  a  permanent  cat  and  a 
permanent  dog.  The  dog  I  chanced  to  know 
was  Mungo — a  wiry,  scraggy  being,  with 
snapping  eyes  and  with  the  whirl  of  a 
Dervish  when  he  was  glad.  He  ordinarily 
accompanied  his  mistress  on  her  walks  and 
drives.  I  remember,  one  morning,  she  said, 
"Now,  Mungo,  be  a  good  dog;  I  am  going 
to  church — you  must  stay  at  home."  "But, 
Mrs.  Whipple,"  I  protested,  "you're  not  go- 
ing to  church:  I  never  thought  you  would 
fib  to  anybody,  least  of  all  to  Mungo."  "I'm 


124        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

not  fibbing,"  she  replied.  "He  knows  noth- 
ing at  all  about  church  except  that  it  is  a 
glace  to  which  he  can't  go.  I  use  the 
language  he  understands,  and  it  is  perfectly 
clear  to  him."  Poor  Mungo  continued  to 
bark  at  inappropriate  times  and  to  whirl 
whenever  his  mistress  "returned  from 
church,"  till  blindness,  and  then  feeble- 
mindedness made  life  so  evidently  a  burden 
to  him,  that  a  merciful  ashman  guided  him 
painlessly  to  the  land  where  good  little  dogs 
go  at  last. 

Into  this  cottage  came  as  a  guest  from 
time  to  time  Miss  Mary  Webster  Whipple, 
a  cousin  of  Mr.  Whipple,  and  a  grand-niece 
of  Daniel  Webster.  When  I  knew  the  cot- 
tage Miss  Whipple  was  giving  herself  to  a 
branch  of  the  Indian  lace-work,  which  had 
been  started  by  Miss  Sibyl  Carter.  Occa- 
sionally she  would  come  out  into  the  white 
man's  country  to  gladden  the  lives  of  her 
friends  and  to  lay  in  a  supply  of  necessary 
clothes.  She  came  with  the  latest  news  of 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE       125 

the  Indians,  vividly  showing  their  pathos 
and  their  dignity.  She  told  once  of  a  visit 
which  an  old  Indian  paid  her  when  she  was 
ill.  "I  hadn't  been  in  church  for  some 
time,"  she  said;  "so  I  asked  him  about  the 
sermon  which  he  had  heard  last."  "Was  it 
good?"  she  asked.  "O  yes,"  he  answered 
slowly,  "very  good.  It  was  about  the  Trin- 
ity. I  never  knew  what  the  Trinity  meant; 
now  I  know."  Miss  Whipple  was  instantly 
alert.  "Well,"  she  said  briskly,  "I  never 
understood ;  tell  me."  "Well,"  he  answered : 
"it  is  this  way:  Trinity  means  three:  there 
is  God — and  Christ — and  the  devil — and 
they  are  all  pulling  different  ways."  One 
Winter  I  had  been  asked  to  write  an  article 
on  Indian  children  for  a  missionary  maga- 
zine. Naturally  I  appealed  to  Miss  Whip- 
pie  for  "copy."  Quickly  the  reply  came 
giving  me  characteristic  incidents.  "But 
really,"  she  added,  "you  must  ask  Susie" — - 
referring  to  her  colleague  in  the  work — "she 
sees  more  high  lights  than  I  do."  But  Miss 


126        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Whipple  herself  saw  the  romance  and  the 
charm  in  the  old  race.  It  is  true  she  laughed 
over  them,  as  when,  for  example,  a  certain 
Indian  complained  about  the  lace-making 
because  his  wife  was  obliged  to  wash  her 
hands  three  times  a  day.  On  the  other  hand 
her  eyes  would  fill  with  tears  as  she  related 
some  story  of  the  devotion  of  "Good 
Thunder"  and  of  other  Indian  saints.  She 
too  saw  the  high  lights. 

On  one  flight  from  the  wilderness,  she  took 
charge  of  a  small  fourth  cousin.  Being  an 
only  child,  he  was  somewhat  spoiled,  though 
altogether  interesting,  an  exceedingly  nice 
little  boy,  of  whom  she  was  very  fond. 
Sometimes  she  meted  out  such  discipline  as 
she  thought  his  absent  parents  would  ap- 
prove. Then  she  dipped  into  the  psychology 
of  her  novel  experience.  "When  I  begin  to 
spank  him,"  she  confessed,  "I  am  sorry  for 
him.  Then,  when  he  resists,  I  fall  to  work 
in  earnest — and  I  enjoy  it." 

I  think  I  never  knew  anyone  who  so 


MARY  WEBSTER  WHIPPLE. 


TWO  COUSINS  BY  MARRIAGE 

quickly  read  the  thoughts  of  those  who 
talked  with  her.  Her  eyes  were  always  dan- 
cing with  intelligence,  and  seemed  to  be  look- 
ing into  all  the  corners  of  one's  mind.  One 
day  I  chanced  to  speak  of  a  very  agreeable 
person  who  never  seemed  to  get  anywhere 
in  particular.  "Don't  you  think,"  I  be- 
gan   "Yes  I  do,"  cried  Miss  Whipple. 

And  that  subject  was  finished.  She  knew 
all  I  was  going  to  say! 

That  she  might  have  the  utmost  to  give, 
she  spent  the  minimum  upon  her  clothes.  So 
the  people  who  sewed  for  her  were  not 
among  the  clever.  One  morning  she  came 
back  to  the  cottage  the  picture  of  misery: 
"O  Cousin  Mary,"  she  wailed,  "one  sleeve 
was  in  backwards,  and  I  must  go  again." 
Mrs.  Whipple  crisply  intimated  that  one 
should  not  be  bothered  by  such  mundane 
trifles:  the  austerity  was  evident.  "Yes, 
Cousin  Mary,"  admitted  Miss  Whipple, 
"you're  probably  right.  I  suppose  this  is 
the  sort  of  thing  St.  Paul  would  have  called 


128        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

light  afflictions!"  Then  suddenly  the  humil- 
ity vanished.  "But  what,"  she  exclaimed, 
"did  St.  Paul  know  about  anything  so  ex- 
asperating! If  he  wanted  a  new  suit,  all  he 
had  to  do  was  to  go  downtown  and  buy  a 
sheet — it  was  sure  to  fit!" 

Both  these  voices  have  long  been  silent; 
and  I  know  not  who  sits  in  the  vine-covered 
cottage  to-day.  But  I  do  know  that  more 
delightful  women  never  sat  either  in  cottage 
or  in  palace;  and  someway,  I  am  sure,  their 
self -forgetting  kindness  goes  on,  to  bless  and 
help  those  who  knew  them  here,  and  those 
for  whom  the  joy  of  a  new  life  is  keener 
"because  they  are  part  of  it. 


A  BOY  I  KNEW 


A  BOY  I  KNEW 

ONE  November  morning,  more  than 
twenty  years  ago,  I  learned  that  a 
boy  had  been  born  in  the  house  of 
one  of  my  friends.    Wishing  to  express  my 
own  pleasure  in  the  event,  I  went  to  a  book 
shop  and  bought  a  little  red  Prayer  Book, 
which  I  thought  would  be  attractive  to  ex- 
treme youth,  and  took  it  as  my  first  birth- 
day gift  to  the  baby.     From  that  day  I 
watched  this  boy. 

He  had  hardly  begun  to  develop  before 
it  was  evident  that  one  of  his  qualities  was 
to  be  a  sense  of  humour.  His  eyes  were 
direct,  black,  and  twinkling.  A  member  of 
his  household  loved  order  extravagantly. 
One  day,  after  the  boy  had  left  his  toys 
strewn  about  the  library,  he  returned  from 

131 


132        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

a  walk  to  find  them  all  put  away.  "Mother," 
he  confided,  "this  room  is  as  neat  as  a  ceme- 
tery." At  another  time,  just  before  Christ- 
mas, he  came  into  this  same  library  to  find 
it  cluttered  with  paper,  string,  and  parcels 
destined  to  be  gifts.  "My  aunt,"  he  said, 
with  a  sweep  of  his  hand,  "doesn't  like  me 
to  leave  my  things  out.  This  is  the  difference 
between  tweedledum  and  tweedledee." 

Spending  most  of  his  time  with  his  elders, 
he  was  apt  to  have  the  feeling  that  the  little 
people  he  saw  in  the  streets  were  several  feet 
shorter  than  himself.  I  remember  seeing 
him  lean  over  the  back  of  a  low  phaeton, 
where  he  was  waiting  while  his  mother  was 
making  a  call,  and,  from  this  safe  vantage- 
ground,  his  eyes  snapping  as  usual,  he  made 
half -insulting,  half -patronizing  remarks  to  a 
group  of  children  who  were  playing  nearby. 
I  mention  this  because  I  feared  at  the  time 
that  he  might  grow  up  to  be  a  snob.  My 
fears,  as  you  will  see,  were  groundless. 

He  was  taken,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to 


A  BOY  I  KNEW  133 

church  and  Sunday-school  as  early  as  pos- 
sible. Coming  home  from  Sunday-school 
one  morning,  he  was  asked  what  he  had 
learned  in  the  infant  school.  "Well,"  he 
said,  "I  learned  about  a  man  named  Stevens, 
and  I  must  say  I  didn't  like  him.  He  talked 
too  much.  And  the  people  didn't  like  him 
either,  so  they  threw  stones  at  him ;  and  then, 
while  they  were  throwing  the  stones,  a  man 
named  Saul  came  up  and  stole  his  clothes." 
A  psychologist  might  deduce  a  good  deal 
from  this  tale,  both  as  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Bible  and  as  to  the  frank  criticism  of  child- 
hood. 

He  was  a  real  boy,  giving  his  parents  the 
usual  anxieties.  But  besides  being  good  by 
the  sanest  sort  of  judgment,  he  was  also  re- 
ligious. One  afternoon,  when  the  snow  was 
deep,  he  was  told  that  he  might  play  out 
of  doors  provided  he  was  careful  not  to  get 
wet  and  was  at  home  promptly  at  five 
o'clock,  and  that,  after  supper  he  might  go 
out  for  a  little,  with  his  dear  friend  the  cook, 


134        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

to  coast.  Five  o'clock  came.  It  was  grow- 
ing dark.  But  the  boy  did  not  come.  At 
six,  his  mother,  somewhat  anxious,  met  him 
in  the  darkness  at  the  door.  He  had  been 
spending  the  afternoon  in  drifts,  and  was 
wet  to  the  skin.  The  verdict  came  instantly 
that  he  must  go  at  once  to  bed  and  have 
his  supper  there,  and  that  there  should  be 
no  coasting.  Smitten  with  grief,  he  made 
his  way  to  his  room  through  the  kitchen  and 
up  the  back  stairs.  That  was  for  the  pur- 
pose of  extracting  comfort  from  the  cook. 
His  mother  understood,  and  went  the  other 
way  to  meet  him  at  the  top  of  the  stairs. 
When  the  lower  door  opened,  the  little 
figure,  sobbing,  kneeling  on  step  by  step, 
came  slowly  up,  praying  on  each  stair,  "O 
Lord,  give  my  mother  a  kind  heart ;  give  my 
mother  a  kind  heart."  It  was  the  Scala 
Santa  in  modern  form.  His  mother  after- 
wards questioned  whether  perhaps  she  ought 
not  to  have  strengthened  his  faith  by  chang- 
ing her  verdict ;  but  a  sound  theology  would 


Photograph  by  C.  N.  Peterson. 


A  BOY  I  KNEW. 


A  BOY  I  KNEW  135 

approve  her  remaining  steadfast  in  her  lov- 
ing discipline. 

One  morning  he  went  into  an  upper 
chamber,  and,  after  locking  himself  in,  and, 
according  to  his  custom,  playing  that  he  was 
Robinson  Crusoe  or  some  other  enticing  per- 
son, he  felt  the  gnawings  of  hunger  and 
wished  to  ask  if  it  were  not  time  for 
luncheon.  Then  to  his  dismay  he  could  not 
turn  the  lock.  By  loud  calling  he  made 
known  his  predicament,  and  all  the  women 
of  the  household  put  their  minds  upon  the 
problem.  They  made  suggestions  at  the 
door.  They  stood  under  the  window  and 
wondered  how  the  room  might  be  reached, 
and  finally  decided  to  wait  until  his  father 
returned,  that  he  might  get  a  ladder  and  so 
mount  to  the  desert  island.  During  all  this 
turmoil  and  discussion  the  boy  stood  in  the 
window,  sending  out  peals  of  laughter  upon 
the  Spring  air.  His  mother  and  the  others 
were  perplexed  because  he  was  not  fright- 
ened by  his  isolation.  His  father,  return- 


136        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

ing,  promptly  took  up  the  burden,  borrowed 
a  ladder,  and  was  about  to  mount  when  the 
boy,  amid  paroxysms  of  laughter,  said  in 
his  slow  drawl,  "Father,  don't  you  think  it 
would  be  better  if  I  took  the  key  out  and 
threw  it  down  to  you,  and  you  opened  the 
door  from  the  other  side?" 

He  yearned  to  be  a  chorister,  and,  being 
rejected  straightway  by  the  choirmaster  be- 
cause he  had  neither  ear  nor  voice,  went  off 
silently  to  a  music  teacher  and  confided  in 
her  the  depth  of  his  trouble,  asking  her 
please  to  develop  his  voice.  She  also  knew 
without  delay  that  he  never  could  sing;  but 
her  heart  was  so  touched  by  his  plea  that 
day  after  day  she  listened  to  his  hopeless 
exercises,  and  then  at  last  convinced  him  that 
he  never  could  be  a  chorister. 

Very  early  he  decided  upon  his  lifework. 
The  horse,  the  garden,  the  gardener,  were 
immediately  his  boyish  delight.  His  heart 
was  set  upon  being  a  farmer.  He  raised 
chickens.  He  sold  The  Saturday  Evening 


A  BOY  I  KNEW  137 

Post  to  increase  his  live-stock.  And  his 
methods  were  modern;  he  talked  of  incuba- 
tors. On  a  Saturday  afternoon  one  of  his 
aunts,  coming  home,  detected  a  smell  of 
smoke  in  the  empty  house.  At  last,  opening 
the  door  from  the  kitchen  to  the  cellar,  she 
was  overwhelmed  with  black  clouds.  The 
gardener,  chancing  to  enter,  swiftly  ran 
down  with  pails  of  water,  exclaiming  each 
time  as  he  returned  for  more,  "Dat  boy! 
Dat  boy!"  It  proved  that  the  boy  had  con- 
ceived the  idea  that  a  little  straw  on  the  top 
of  the  furnace  would  make  an  incubator,  and 
there  he  had  deposited  a  dozen  eggs,  expect- 
ing in  due  time  to  see  the  chickens  fly  down 
from  their  birthplace.  When  he  came  home 
that  night,  he  learned  how  narrowly  he  had 
escaped  destroying  his  home;  but  his  sorrow 
was  for  another  reason.  "O  mother,"  he 
cried,  as  he  threw  himself  into  her  arms,  "it 
was  my  beautiful  surprise  for  your  birthday, 
and  now  it  is  all  spoiled!" 

When  the  boy  was  ten  years  old,  I  moved 


138        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

away  from  the  town  where  he  lived;  and  a 
few  days  before  my  departure  he  and  the 
phaeton  were  lent  to  me  to  make  certain 
country  calls;  and  a  very  diverting  after- 
noon it  was.  We  talked  of  all  sorts  of  sub- 
jects. I  asked  him  if  he  would  not  like  to 
be  a  minister.  After  probing  with  some  care 
my  own  satisfaction  in  my  life-work,  he  said 
that  he  thought  that  his  father  and  mother 
would  probably  like  very  much  to  have  him 
become  a  minister,  but  that  he  hardly  saw 
his  way  to  it.  He  felt  sure  that  he  must 
be  a  farmer.  "I  suppose,"  he  said  with  a 
sigh,  "that  I  shall  have  to  go  to  Harvard 
College  because  my  aunts  insist  on  it;  but 
after  that  I  am  going  to  Amherst  Agricul- 
tural College."  Just  at  this  point,  as  we 
were  driving  by  a  farm,  he  pointed  to  an 
object,  asking  me  in  a  tentative  way  if  I 
knew  what  it  was.  I  ventured  to  say  that 
it  was  a  harrow,  at  which  he  looked  at  me 
with  warm  approval,  asking,  "How  did  you 
know?"  I  answered  by  asking  him  how  he 


A  BOY  I  KNEW  139 

happened  to  know  what  it  was.  "Oh,"  he 
replied,  "of  course  /  know;  but  I  don't 
understand  how  a  minister  should  know  what 
a  harrow  is."  As  the  afternoon  progressed, 
we  became  more  and  more  nearly  the  same 
age,  and  he  took  certain  liberties  which  made 
it  clear  to  me  that  I  seemed  to  him  no  older 
than  himself.  It  was  delightful.  Then  sud- 
denly his  conscience  smote  him,  and  he  let 
the  lines  drop,  a  far-off  look  coming  into  his 
eyes.  "My!"  he  exclaimed,  "I  wonder  if  my 
mother  would  think  that  I  had  been  respect- 
ful." Whereupon  I  laughed  so  long  that 
the  relationship  was  immediately  restored. 

After  this  I  did  not  see  the  boy  for  sev- 
eral years.  I  heard  from  him  indirectly,  and 
my  interest  did  not  waver.  In  due  time  he 
was  sent  to  a  school  sufficiently  near  my  new 
home  to  allow  him  to  come  and  spend  part 
of  his  Easter  holiday  with  me.  The  little 
boy  had  vanished,  and,  though  he  was  only 
thirteen,  he  had  the  stature  of  a  man.  He 
talked  freely  of  all  his  old  enthusiasms.  I 


140        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

fear  I  teased  him  by  talking  blatantly  of 
a  rival  school.  He  tried  to  be  loyal  under 
the  circumstances,  both  to  me  and  to  his 
school,  saying,  with  a  pensive  smile,  "Well, 
I  should  like  our  headmaster  to  ask  you  to 
preach,  but  I  am  afraid  some  of  these  things 
you  talk  about  wouldn't  be  acceptable  to  the 
fellows."  Sitting  with  me  in  my  study,  he 
looked  it  over  with  mild  approbation.  "This 
is  a  nice  room,"  he  said,  "but  it  is  only  about 
half  as  big  as  our  headmaster's."  He  talked, 
one  night  at  dinner,  about  his  loyalty  to  the 
West,  and  was  covered  with  confusion  when 
he  could  not  remember,  upon  being  ques- 
tioned, who  the  governor  of  his  State  was. 
It  was  afterwards  explained  by  a  member 
of  his  family  that  this  was  much  to  his  credit, 
since  this  particular  governor  was  not  a  per- 
son whom  anyone  should  remember.  I  took 
him,  on  this  Easter  visit,  into  the  church  to 
hear  the  rehearsal  of  the  Sunday  evening 
music.  As  we  sat  down  in  a  pew,  a  remark- 
able voice  leapt  to  a  high  note  with  marvel- 


A  BOY  I  KNEW  141 

lous  ease,  and  the  boy,  unmusical  as  he  was, 
knew  that  something  had  happened.  "That's 
pretty  good,"  he  whispered  to  me;  "I  think 
our  headmaster  would  let  him  sing  in  the 
chapel,  if  you  sent  him  up."  Then,  PS  the 
voice  went  still  higher,  with  its  clear  notes, 
the  boy  again  whispered,  "Where  does  he 
come  from?"  I  named  a  State  not  far  from 
his  own.  He  looked  again,  observing  for  the 
first  time  that  the  singer's  hair  was  rather 
long.  "Ah,"  he  exclaimed,  "from  the  West, 
is  he?  Well,  one  thing  I  must  say,  that  hair 
doesn't  do  the  West  any  credit." 

Months  passed.  I  heard  from  the  boy's 
parents  that  the  reports  from  his  school 
varied.  He  was  often  much  more  interested 
in  playing  games  and  in  prowling  about  the 
country,  studying  the  wonderful  world  of 
out-of-doors,  than  he  was  in  his  books;  but 
a  beseeching  letter  from  home  clinched  the 
headmaster's  suasion,  and  the  marks  rapidly 
improved. 

Then  one  day  in  the  following  fall  I  re- 


142        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

ceived  the  message  that  the  boy  was  danger- 
ously ill.  Before  any  who  had  known  him 
all  his  years  could  reach  him,  he  was  dead. 
Out  of  apparently  robust  and  vigorous 
i  health,  he  had  been  taken,  with  scarcely  a 
warning,  to  another  life.  As  I  talked  with 
his  schoolmasters  on  the  morning  of  the 
funeral,  I  learned  that  each  was  glad  when 
it  came  the  boy's  turn  to  sit  near  him  at 
table ;  for  while  the  boys  from  the  city  talked 
of  the  things  of  the  city,  this  boy  talked  of 
the  open  country,  the  birds,  the  things  grow- 
ing by  the  road,  and  the  interesting  people 
one  met  by  stone  walls.  Going  into  his  room, 
we  found  there  the  symbols  of  his  character. 
There  were  the  photographs  of  the  people 
at  home;  carefully  folded  away  was  a  bill- 
head, bearing  the  boy's  name,  and  describing 
him  as  a  dealer  in  poultry  and  farm  produce 
'(a  bit  of  printing  which  he  had  done 
privately  the  last  summer,  when  he  had  sold 
certain  results  of  his  garden  and  chicken- 
coop)  ;  here  also  I  saw  upon  the  table  the 


A  BOY  I  KNEW  143 

little  red  Prayer  Book  which  he  had  still 
kept  and  used;  and  then  there  were  all  the 
trifles  that  a  boy  keeps  in  his  pocket  and 
by  his  bedside.  Yet  as  we  looked  upon  the 
form,  tall  and  sturdy,  it  was  hard  to  believe 
that  the  spirit  had  vanished  while  he  was  still 
a  boy.  There  came  visions  of  what  such  a 
life  must  be  in  the  larger  freedom,  prepared 
to  live  and  therefore  surely  living.  Some- 
one said,  "He  looks  a  brave  young  warrior;" 
another  corrected,  "A  happy  warrior;"  and 
still  another,  "Unspotted  from  the  world." 
A  younger  brother,  discovering  his  mother 
weeping  over  an  article  about  the  boy, 
brought  his  word  of  consolation.  "This 
story,"  he  began,  "says  that  God  has  taken 
him  to  other  fields."  He  paused.  "Now," 
argued  the  little  philosopher,  "he  is  probably 
ploughing  for  God — and  you  know  he  would 
love  that." 


A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR 


A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR 

DURING  the  first  Fall  which  I  spent 
in  Minnesota  I  went  to  a  convoca- 
tion in  Red  Wing.  Red  Wing  is 
a  town  among  the  hills  on  the  Mississippi 
River,  a  picturesque  situation  with  beautiful 
outlook.  In  the  early  days  of  the  town  three 
graduates  of  Hobart  College  decided  to 
throw  in  their  lot  with  its  history — a  clergy- 
man named  Edward  Randolph  Welles,  and 
two  physicians,  Augustine  Boyer  Hawley 
and  Charles  Nathaniel  Hewitt.  The  two 
physicians  were,  with  a  lawyer,  Eli  T. 
Wilder,  the  chief  pillars  of  the  parish  of 
which  Mr.  Welles  was  the  rector.  Four 
strong  and  able  men,  they  were  typical  of 
the  young  professional  men  who  were  com- 
ing in  those  days  from  the  Northeastern 

147 


148        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

States  of  our  country  to  make  the  substan- 
tial citizenship  of  the  great  Northwest. 
They  stood  for  old  American  traditions, 
education,  refinement,  and  character.  They 
made  Red  Wing  an  enviable  neighbourhood, 
and  they  made  of  Christ  Church  one  of  the 
notable  churches  in  a  whole  group  of  dio- 
ceses. With  the  vision  which  might  have 
been  expected  of  such  men,  a  triangular  plot 
of  ground  in  the  very  centre  of  the  town 
was  secured,  and  a  stone  church,  on  good 
Gothic  lines,  was  built.  No  one  who  entered 
Red  Wing  could  fail  to  see  Christ  Church, 
and,  seeing  it,  stop  to  marvel  at  its  com- 
manding situation  and  its  reverent  appeal. 

With  the  limitations  of  Massachusetts  still 
upon  me  I  was  frankly  surprised  to  find  in 
a  community  only  a  score  or  so  of  years  older 
than  myself  a  sense  of  history  and  a  people's 
pride  in  its  past.  Mr.  Wilder  had  become 
a  judge,  was  recognized  as  the  chief  layman 
of  the  diocese,  and  for  many  sessions  had 
been  a  leader  in  the  General  Convention. 


A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR  149 

Dr.  Hawley,  who  had  studied  medicine  in 
Edinburgh  and  Paris,  and  who  had  given  an 
affectionate  ministry  to  the  sick  and  suffer- 
ing of  Red  Wing,  had  been  dead  eighteen 
years.  Mr.  Welles  had  become  Bishop  of 
Wisconsin;  he,  too,  had  been  long  dead.  The 
remaining  member  of  the  distinguished 
group  was  Dr.  Hewitt,  of  whom  I  wish 
especially  to  speak  in  this  chapter. 

Dr.  Hewitt  was  my  host  on  this  my  first 
visit  to  Red  Wing.  I  knew  by  hearsay  that 
he  was  full  of  interest  and  charm,  but  I  was 
not  prepared  for  the  real  man.  In  the  late 
afternoon  I  went  up  to  his  gate.  I  found 
myself  before  a  low  wooden  house  among 
the  trees.  Instantly  even  the  house  bristled 
with  individuality:  it  had  what  we  strangely 
call  atmosphere.  With  all  its  modesty  and 
simplicity  one  knew  that  somebody  who  was 
somebody  lived  within  it.  It  is  more  than 
twenty  years  ago  that  I  made  that  visit.  But 
I  have  still  the  vivid  impression  of  the  din- 
ing-room where  a  group  of  people,  the 


150        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

nicest  of  the  nice,  sat  down  for  dinner — a 
little  early  because  the  first  service  of  the 
convocation  was  to  be  that  night.  There  was 
the  sparkle  of  friendliness  and  humour  pass- 
ing over  the  table,  with  now  and  again  a 
brilliant,  half-caustic  flash  from  the  host, 
which  made  me  at  least  wish  that  convoca- 
tions would  never  have  opening  sessions  the 
first  night,  and  that  we  might  sit  indefinitely 
at  that  feast  of  fast-flying  talk,  where  eating 
was  of  little  moment. 

After  the  opening  session  of  the  convoca- 
tion the  men  went  into  the  library  for  more 
talk,  which  lasted  far  into  the  night.  This 
room  was  the  typical  room  in  a  house  full 
of  personality.  Books  were  everywhere,  and 
among  the  books  at  one  end  of  the  room 
were  the  pipes  of  an  organ.  The  host  told 
the  story  of  the  organ.  He  loved  the  music 
of  the  Church,  and  around  this  organ  he 
had,  on  Sunday  afternoons,  gathered  the 
boys  of  the  town  who  could  sing.  He  had 
taught  them  hymns  and  canticles — and  good 


A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR  151 

manners.  He  had  scolded  them,  laughed  at 
them,  loved  them.  Christ  Church,  Red 
Wing,  was  a  conservative  parish,  and  it  did 
not  believe  that  boys  should  lead  the  music 
in  the  church ;  but  the  day  came  at  last  when 
the  boys  in  Dr.  Hewitt's  library  were  told 
that  they  might  put  on  surplices,  march  into 
Christ  Church,  and  sit  in  the  choir.  And 
then  the  whole  parish  knew  what  Dr.  Hewitt 
had  been  doing  through  the  Sunday  after- 
noons of  many  years.  I  doubt  if  any  chor- 
isters ever  had  such  thorough  preparation  as 
these  boys  of  Red  Wing  before  their  first 
appearance  in  a  chancel.  I  have  often 
thought  that  I  should  like  to  have  seen  Dr. 
Hewitt's  face  that  first  Sunday  morning 
when  his  own  boys  sang  the  music  of  the 
service  in  the  church  which  he  and  his 
friends  had  built. 

After  all  the  years  I  can  remember  some 
of  the  things  Dr.  Hewitt  said  that  November 
night.  One  of  the  guests  in  the  house  was 
an  enthusiastic  mountain  climber,  and 


152        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

described  the  perils  from  which,  during  the 
past  Summer,  he  and  some  friends  had  nar- 
rowly escaped.  I  remember  asking  about  a 
college  friend  who  had  lost  his  life  in  the 
mountains  two  years  before.  The  same 
guest  knew  every  detail  of  his  exploit.  It 
was  a  thrilling  description,  and  we  sat  spell- 
bound— all  but  Dr.  Hewitt.  He  sat  stiffly 
in  his  chair,  a  look  half  of  pity,  half  of  dis- 
pleasure on  his  face.  "Do  you  call  that 
heroism?"  he  asked.  "I  call  it  waste  of  life. 
A  man  has  no  right  to  run  such  risks  except 
for  a  worthy  object — an  object  which  helps 
someone,  or  pushes  on  some  great  cause." 
Arguments  were  brought  up  to  plead  for  the 
spirit  of  adventure,  the  advance  of  scientific 
discovery,  the  inculcation  of  courage  in  a 
soft  age — but  he  would  have  none  of  them. 
Life  to  him  seemed  so  full  of  necessary  perils 
that  the  strong  man  must  save  himself 
scrupulously  for  the  inevitable  crisis.  He 
bit  savagely  into  the  subject;  and  the  en- 
thusiast for  the  mountains  allowed  the  con- 


A  MINNESTOA  DOCTOR  153 

versation  to   come   down  to  the   inhabited 
valleys. 

Soon  we  were  talking  about  sermons,  and 
this  was  by  Dr.  Hewitt's  own  choice.  He 
began  to  talk  about  preachers  who  ventilated 
their  intellectual  processes.  "I  trust  my 
clergyman,"  he  said;  "I  want  him  to  settle 
all  his  doubts  and  difficulties  at  home.  When 
he  stands  up  to  preach  his  sermon  I  want 
him  to  give  me  the  conclusions  he  has 
reached.  I  want  to  know  what  he  believes." 
We  smiled;  for  we  suspected  that  if  the 
trusted  rector  happened  to  hit  upon  conclu- 
sions which  were  not  fairly  in  harmony  with 
the  conclusions  which  the  vigorous  and 
thoughtful  doctor  had  reached  in  his  library 
there  would  be  a  brisk  asking  of  questions 
in  front  of  the  post-office  the  next  morning, 
and  peppery  argument  interspersed  with 
amusing  flings,  now  at  things  too  old,  and 
again  at  things  too  new. 

Dr.  Hewitt  had  been  at  one  time  the  chief 
executive  officer  of  the  State  board  of  health. 


154       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

In  a  certain  epidemic  of  smallpox  he  made 
it  his  task  to  see  that  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  Minnesota  was  vaccinated.  He  told 
us  that  night  of  his  experience  in  visiting  a 
monastery,  the  brethren  of  which  had  thus 
far  refused  to  submit  to  the  order  of  the 
board  of  health.  Dr.  Hewitt  himself  went 
to  the  monastery  to  see  that  every  monk 
was  vaccinated.  He  reached  the  remote 
building  one  bleak  Winter  evening  after  a 
long  railway  journey.  He  was  admitted  to 
a  hall  which  was  just  a  little  colder  than  the 
world  out  of  doors.  He  was  told  that  in 
due  time  the  abbot  would  see  him.  Cold  and 
hungry,  the  doctor  waited  for  more  than  an 
hour,  expecting  every  moment  that  the 
tomb-like  hall  would  open  and  he  should  be 
admitted  again  to  life.  When  at  length  the 
door  opened  and  a  brother  announced  that 
the  abbot  would  now  see  him,  Dr.  Hewitt's 
temper  was  running  high.  He  did  not  know 
exactly  what  he  would  say,  but  he  was  sure 
that  such  an  abbot  as  this,  who  certainly 


A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR  155 

knew  of  his  waiting  guest,  should  receive 
some  punishment.  The  abbot  received  the 
physician  with  a  dignity  several  degrees 
more  frigid  than  the  hall.  He  evidently 
wished  to  impress  him  with  the  folly  and 
temerity  of  any  interference  of  the  State 
with  Holy  Church.  This  dignity  of  the 
abbot  was  quickly  punctured  by  Dr.  Hewitt, 
who  took  up  the  parable:  "I  want  to  tell 
you,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  familiar  with  the 
rules  of  your  order.  The  first  rule  is  hos- 
pitality. You  have  grossly  disobeyed  it. 
You  have  kept  me  waiting  in  a  cold  hall  for 
more  than  an  hour."  One  could  instinctively 
feel  the  collapse  of  the  abbot  as  the  story  was 
told.  Immediately  the  abbot  apologized 
and  begged  forgiveness:  there  was  no  more 
effort  to  play  Canossa.  "Everything  will 
be  done  to  make  you  comfortable,"  said  the 
abbot  sweetly,  "and  to-morrow  you  will  meet 
the  brethren  in  the  chapter  and  we  shall  con- 
fer about  the  object  of  your  visit." 

The  next  morning  the  doctor  found  him- 


156       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

self  in  a  large  room  with  the  monks  seated 
about  the  walls,  the  abbot  in  his  seat  of 
authority.  When  all  was  ready  the  abbot 
announced,  "One  of  the  brethren  will  now 
read  a  paper  which  will  convince  you,  Dr. 
Hewitt,  that  vaccination  is  not  only  useless, 
but  wrong."  First  amazed,  then  indignant, 
the  doctor  gradually  fell  back  upon  the 
humour  of  the  situation.  Suddenly  a 
thought  came  to  him,  and  he  smiled  with 
great  joy;  for  he  saw  that  the  monastery  was 
delivered  into  his  hand.  The  last  part  of 
the  paper  he  did  not  hear.  He  was  think- 
ing of  more  cheerful  things  than  smallpox. 
When  the  reader  sat  down  there  was  a  hum 
of  approval,  and  all  seemed  satisfied  that 
nothing  could  be  said  in  reply.  Dr.  Hewitt 
waited  a  moment,  and  then  rose  calmly. 
"This  has  been  very  interesting,"  he  said; 
"I,  a  physician,  have  listened  to  a  paper 
about  medicine  written  by  a  theologian. 
Now  I  propose  to  do  for  you  what  you  have 
kindly  done  for  me.  I  ask  you,  as 


A  MINNESOTA  DOCTOR  157 

theologians,  to  listen  to  me  while  I,  a  physi- 
cian, speak  to  you  on  a  grave  matter  of 
theology.  There  is  one  of  your  doctrines 
which  I  as  physician  know  to  be  wholly  im- 
possible and  I  can  prove  it  to  you.  I  am 
sure  that  I  can  make  clear  to  you  its 
utter.  .  .  .  "  With  that  there  was  a  shout 
from  every  corner  of  the  room,  "O  doctor, 
vaccinate  us!"  From  abbot  to  youngest 
brother,  there  was  a  throwing  up  of  sleeves, 
and  arms  were  made  ready  for  the  officer  of 
the  State.  The  doctor,  saying  no  more  of 
theology,  fell  to  work. 

In  course  of  time  the  migration  from 
Northeastern  America  ceased,  and  a  new 
migration  began  —  from  Northwestern 
Europe,  especially  Scandinavia.  When 
members  of  the  Church  of  Sweden  entered 
Red  Wing  they  found  a  dignified  church 
with  a  well-ordered  service,  which  seemed 
more  like  home  than  anything  else  in  the  new 
world.  Thus  new  parishioners  mingled 
among  the  old,  and  the  foundations  laid  by 


158       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

four  good  men  with  generations  of  Ameri- 
cans behind  them  served  for  the  happy 
superstructure  in  which  Americans  of  a 
newer  citizenship  have  shared. 

Dr.  Hewitt  was  the  last  of  these  founders 
to  finish  his  work  in  this  life.  Eight  years 
ago  he  joined  his  three  friends;  perhaps  they 
together  have  sought  out  some  celestial  fron- 
tier which  they  can,  by  their  presence  and 
their  deeds,  make  happier  for  men,  who, 
through  them,  shall  become  joyfully  eager 
to  give  worship  to  God. 


SAMUEL  HART 


SAMUEL  HART 

ONE  of  the  most  impressive  recurring 
moments  in  the  General  Convention 
for  many  sessions  has  been  the  time, 
day  by  day,  when  it  has  been  announced  in 
the  House  of  Clerical  and  Lay  Deputies 
that  a  message  from  the  House  of  Bishops 
was  about  to  be  received.  Everyone  has 
stood,  and  Dr.  Samuel  Hart,  the  Secretary 
of  the  House  of  Bishops,  has  walked  slowly 
from  the  western  door  to  the  President's 
desk  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  church  or  hall. 
He  has  always  carried  the  document  at  ex- 
actly the  same  angle,  and  has  never  varied 
his  step.  For  a  man  abounding  in  humour 
and  also  exceedingly  modest,  it  was  only  re- 
spect for  his  task  which  could  have  kept  him 
invariably  serious  and  dignified,  and  at  the 

161 


162        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

same  time  unconscious  of  himself  and  wholly 
unembarrassed,  as  he  performed  a  trying 
duty.  This  solemn  procession  of  one  has 
told  those  who  have  cared  to  think  about  it 
characteristic  news  of  Samuel  Hart. 

Long  before  I  ever  met  Dr.  Hart  I  heard 
of  him  from  students  of  Trinity  College, 
Hartford.  He  taught  Latin  there,  and  won 
the  respect  and  affection  of  all  the  men. 
They  called  him,  behind  his  back,  "Sammie 
Hart" — which  meant  that  they  liked  him 
very  much  indeed.  One  of  them  told  me 
that  when  at  Chapel  they  read  in  the  Psalter, 
"He  maketh  my  feet  like  harts'  feet,"  they 
always  turned  and  looked  at  Professor  Hart. 
They  recognized  in  him  an  accurate  scholar, 
whose  influence  upon  them  was  potent  for 
good.  They  heard  of  his  regular  visits  to 
the  hospital.  He  did  his  countless  kind- 
nesses with  the  utmost  quietness:  they  ad- 
mired his  simplicity.  When  he  went  back  to 
a  college  commencement  recently  he  met  an 
old  pupil  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  many 


SAMUEL  HART  163 

years.  "Well,"  he  said,  "how  are  things  go- 
ing with  you,  Jimmie?"  The  man  straight- 
ened, and  answered:  "Oh,  very  well  indeed, 
Dr.  Hart;  I  never  expected  my  business 
could  have  prospered  as  it  has.  Everything 
seems  to  have  come  my  way."  "I'm  very 
glad,"  said  the  kind  old  friend;  "but  I  didn't 
mean  quite  that."  Then  suddenly  he  broke 
off,  and  Dr.  Hart's  eyes  turned  earnestly 
upon  him,  as  he  said,  "Jimmie,  do  yqu  say 
your  prayers?"  I  rather  think  that  the  man 
did  say  his  prayers ;  but  if  he  had  grown  care- 
less, the  thought  that  someone  cared  enough 
to  break  through  the  natural  reserves  of  life 
— that  someone  being  a  person  whose  right 
to  ask  pointed  questions  he  recognized — the 
old  habit  would  have  begun  again,  never 
again  to  stop. 

Later  Dr.  Hart  went  to  Berkeley  Divin- 
ity School,  to  be  first  Professor  of  Theology, 
and  then  Dean.  He  had  always  been  close 
to  Bishop  Williams,  and  it  meant  much  to 
the  loyal  follower  of  the  great  Bishop  to  be 


164        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

carrying  on  the  School  which  the  Bishop 
had  founded,  and  to  be  living  even  in  the 
Bishop's  old  house.  There  is  a  tale  that  when 
the  Bishop  wished  this  favourite  son  in  the 
Faith  to  be  elected  to  any  office  in  the  gift 
of  the  Diocesan  Convention,  such  as  a  place 
on  the  Standing  Committee  or  on  the  delega- 
tion to  the  General  Convention,  he  would 
stand  in  the  door  of  the  meeting  place,  and 
say  as  he  greeted  each  clergyman,  "How  do 
you  do,  my  dear  brother;"  and  then  add  in 
a  whisper,  as  if  it  were  a  great  secret,  "Vote 
for  Sam  Hart."  And  "Sam  Hart"  was  al- 
ways elected!  Everyone  felt  that  when  Dr. 
Hart  succeeded  to  an  office  which  was  per- 
haps the  largest  part  of  Bishop  Williams's 
life-work,  the  Bishop  must  have  been  whis- 
pering the  directions  through  the  celestial 
spaces. 

When  I  came  to  live  in  a  neighbouring 
diocese,  Dean  Hart  laid  hold  upon  me,  and 
brought  me  down  to  Middletown  to  give 
occasional  lectures  to  the  students.  I  always 


SAMUEL  HART  165 

stayed  with  him  in  the  big  old  house,  when 
I  made  my  visits  to  the  School;  and  I  came 
to  look  forward  to  these  visits  as  bright  spots 
in  my  working  year.  The  house  itself  was 
interesting.  Washington  had  slept  in  it,  and 
its  architecture  was  worthy  of  such  an 
honour.  But,  more  than  that,  was  the 
thought  of  Bishop  Williams,  whom  it 
seemed  exactly  to  fit.  Dr.  Hart  lived  alone, 
and  we  ate  together  in  the  old  dining-room. 
I  was  always  glad  when  there  was  no  other 
guest,  for  we  were  apt  to  sit  talking,  at  the 
table,  long  after  we  had  finished  the  simple 
and  excellent  repast.  He  was  the  sort  of 
man  with  whom  one  instantly  felt  at  home. 
With  wide-spreading  knowledge  and  gener- 
ous sympathy,  he  talked  of  the  things  in 
which  one  was  most  absorbed.  If  he  touched 
on  his  own  hobbies,  he  did  it  with  an  amused 
chuckle,  to  show  that  he  knew  what  a  queer 
old  fellow  he  was.  I  asked  him  what  he  was 
reading  ^  that  was  particularly  inspiring. 
"Oh,"  he  said,  "a  whole  raft  of  books  on 


166       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Halley's  Comet,  and  Dr.  Swete's  new  book 
on  The  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Ancient  Church" 
Then  he  talked  about  both  in  a  way  which 
showed  that  though  he  was  a  thorough 
theologian,  the  fresh  air  of  other  interests 
blew  in  and  out  among  his  ancient  doctrines, 
and  made  them  alive  and  wholesome. 

He  was  a  fine  type  of  Anglican  the- 
ologian, steeped  in  the  traditions  of  the 
English  Church,  devoted  to  its  order  and 
beauty.  In  his  stall  in  the  Chapel  he  kept 
a  Hebrew  Bible  and  a  Greek  Testament, 
that  he  might  follow  the  Lessons  in  the 
original.  He  liked  Morning  and  Evening 
Prayer  just  as  they  were,  and  resented  the 
addition  of  many  hymns.  He  pleaded  for 
a  dignified  phraseology  in  speaking  of  the 
functions  of  the  Church.  He  felt  that  to 
speak  of  the  Holy  Communion  as  "the  cele- 
bration" was  irreverent;  and  he  shuddered 
when  he  heard  young  clergymen  talking  of 
being  "priested."  He  thought  people  might 
take  time  to  say  "celebration  of  the  Holy 


SAMUEL  HART. 


SAMUEL  HART  167 

Communion/'  and  "ordained  to  the  priest- 
hood." I  asked  the  privilege  of  being  pres- 
ent at  one  of  his  lectures  on  Liturgies  at 
the  School.  One  could  not  help  being  im- 
pressed by  the  reverent  way  he  turned  the 
leaves  of  the  Prayer  Book  as  he  talked. 
There  was  not  only  the  minute  technical  in- 
formation which  he  gave  his  men  about 
authorship  and  date  and  doctrine :  there  was 
also  the  historical  allusion;  and,  still  more, 
the  revelation  of  his  own  devout  reaction.  It 
was  eminently  appropriate  that  he  was  the 
official  "Custodian  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer."  He  loved  every  comma  in  the 
book. 

He  never  paraded  his  friendships  as  he 
talked ;  but  he  had  deep  intimacies.  He  and 
Bishop  Doane  of  Albany  exchanged  con- 
stant letters  in  Latin.  One  found  this  out 
only  by  accident,  as  he  spoke  of  devising 
some  Latin  word  to  designate  a  modern  in- 
vention. He  had  profound  regard  for  Dr. 
William  Huntington,  and  always  spoke  of 


168       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

him  with  peculiar  earnestness.  But  the  per- 
sonality beyond  and  above  all  other  friends 
was  his  master,  Bishop  Williams.  That  was 
a  fellowship  of  which  I  seldom  heard  him 
talk;  but  I  knew  that  he  never  forgot  him, 
in  all  his  thinking  and  teaching. 

He  was  Connecticut  condensed  into  one 
man.  Except  to  go  to  the  General  Con- 
vention, he  seemed  never  to  go  out  of  the 
State.  He  was  elected  Bishop  of  Vermont, 
but  he  promptly  declined  to  go  away.  His 
chief  journeying  was,  first,  between  Hart- 
ford and  Saybrook ;  and,  then,  between  Mid- 
dletown  and  Saybrook;  for  it  was  in  Say- 
brook  that  his  mother  lived.  He  had  all  the 
Connecticut  humour  and  ingenuity  and 
sense  of  order.  Had  he  not  been  the  soul 
of  honesty  he  could  have  even  made  wooden 
nutmegs.  He  exulted  in  Connecticut  his- 
tory, and  Connecticut  traditions,  and  Con- 
necticut idioms.  He  knew  many  of  the  little 
parishes  tucked  away  in  the  hills  which 
everyone  else  seemed  to  have  forgotten.  He 


SAMUEL  HART  169 

told  me  once  that  an  eminent  layman  of  New 
Haven  had  a  Sunday  or  two  before  hap- 
pened to  spend  the  day  in  a  decaying  little 
village  where  our  Church  services  continued 
to  be  held.  The  layman  put  his  usual  Sun- 
day morning  offering  on  the  plate,  and 
thought  no  more  of  it.  But  the  next  morn- 
ing he  was  informed  that  the  vestry  of  the 
little  church  had  come  to  see  him.  "We  have 
come  to  thank  you,"  they  said,  "for  your 
help  to  our  parish:  it  is  the  largest  offering 
we  have  ever  received."  It  was  two  dollars. 
Dr.  Hart  laughed  his  inimitable  laugh  as  he 
described  the  vestryman  who  passed  the 
plate  to  the  stranger,  and  nervously  watched 
to  see  what  he  would  drop  upon  it ;  but  there 
was  something  like  a  sob  in  his  voice  when 
he  finished  the  story.  It  was  all  an  instance 
of  the  humour  and  the  pathos  of  his  dear 
Connecticut. 

Dr.  Hart's  life  was,  for  the  most  part, 
lived  in  the  quiet  of  a  scholar's  retirement. 
But  from  his  watch-tower  he  looked  out 


170       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

upon  the  larger  world.  He  disposed  of 
showy  superficiality,  when  he  saw  it  appar- 
ently succeeding  in  this  man  or  that,  by  a 
coy  allusion,  never  bitter,  never  self-com- 
placent, only  amused.  He  asked  how  the 
people  who  had  the  power  of  choice  could 
have  chosen  to  lead  their  cause  a  man  who 
was  palpably  not  at  all  fitted:  didn't  they 
know,  or  didn't  they  care?  It  was  quite 
alarming  to  discover  how  much  a  man  living 
in  a  somewhat  detached  community  could 
know  of  everything  and  everybody.  The 
judgments  which  went  out  upon  people  who 
felt  secure  upon  the  pedestals  of  their  im- 
portance seemed  in  some  way  to  have  an 
authority  which  the  louder  verdict  of  men 
and  groups  in  the  public  eye  could  not  have. 
The  humour  of  Dr.  Hart  was  full  of 
originality  and  spontaneity.  His  last  con- 
spicuous duty  was  to  the  General  Conven- 
tion of  1916  in  St.  Louis.  The  sessions  were 
to  be  held  in  a  garish  hall  called  Moolah 
Temple.  When  he  went  out  with  others  to 


SAMUEL  HART  171 

arrange  details  for  the  Convention  with  the 
local  committee,  he  stood  at  the  door  of 
Moolah  Temple  and  looked  in.  Instantly 
came  the  short  chuckle  from  Dr.  Hart,  as 
he  said,  "Give  thy  servant  two  mules'  burden 
of  earth,  when  my  master  goeth  into  the 
house  of  Rimmon!" 

The  old  house  in  Middletown  has  one 
more  association  with  the  past.  Some  of  us 
will  value  it  most  of  all  because  one  whose 
memory  we  shall  ever  cherish  lived  and  died 
in  it,  with  the  simplicity  of  a  scholar  and  a 
saint. 


HENRY  VAUGHAN 


HENRY  VAUGHAN 

IN  years  to  come  one  of  the  men  to  whom 
America  will  be  grateful  is  Henry 
Vaughan.  He  was  the  architect  of  the 
chapels  of  two  of  our  great  American 
schools,  St.  Paul's  and  Groton.  Three  of 
the  Chapels  of  the  Tongues,  clustered  about 
the  apse  of  the  New  York  Cathedral,  are 
the  result  of  his  reverent  genius.  Most  of 
all,  the  Cathedral  in  Washington  will  be 
wholly  his;  since,  by  wise  foresight,  he  was 
induced  to  make  working  drawings  of  the 
entire  structure,  though  it  was  evident  that 
perhaps  not  for  generations  could  the  huge 
church  be  finished. 

Few  people  ever  saw  Henry  Vaughan. 
I  cannot  remember  hearing  that  he  ever 
made  a  speech  or  appeared  on  any  public 

175 


176        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

platform.  The  memory  which  most  people, 
even  of  his  own  generation,  can  have  of  him, 
therefore,  is  what  they  have  seen  of  him  in 
his  churches.  These  churches  speak  clearly 
of  the  character  of  the  architect  who 
thought  them  out.  They  all  have  rare 
beauty,  but  the  continuing  impression  which 
they  give  is  peace.  There  is  exquisite  de- 
tail, but  there  is  also  much  plain  surface. 
There  is  nothing  grotesque.  The  spirit  of 
mediaeval  art  is  there,  but  is  perfectly  as- 
similated in  a  devout  builder  of  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth  centuries.  I  cannot 
remember  any  grinning  creatures  crouching 
even  in  obscure  corners.  There  was  nothing 
forced  or  affected  in  his  ornamentation.  A 
restraint  which  was  something  more  than 
good  taste  marked  his  work. 

I  was  once  rector  of  a  New  England 
parish  which  had  chosen  him  for  its  archi- 
tect. The  original  building  was  on  fairly 
good  lines,  but  quite  different  from  any- 
thing he  would  have  done.  He  wrote 


HENRY  VAUGHAN  177 

quent  letters,  always  with  his  own  hand,  and 
the  problem  was  often  talked  over  face  to 
face.  I  think  he  never  complained  of  the 
obvious  faults  of  the  building.  We  were 
eager  to  have  three  wheel  windows  changed 
to  rose  windows  by  such  noble  tracery  as  we 
knew  that  he  could  design;  he  gave  us 
sketches,  but  he  warned  us  that  the  beauty 
of  rose  windows  was  not  at  all  in  the  tracery 
but  in  the  quality  of  the  glass.  We  had 
money  for  a  modest  tower,  and  he  set  to 
work  to  draw  for  us  what  could  be  done  for 
thirty  thousand  dollars.  When  it  was  dis- 
covered that  the  lowest  estimate  was  more 
than  fifty  thousand,  he  blamed  himself  for 
stupidity,  and  straightway  set  to  work  again. 
But,  once  having  seen  the  drawing  which  he 
had  first  made,  the  Vestry  could  not  be  satis- 
fied with  anything  less;  and  the  Parish 
waits  for  it.  Perhaps  it  will  come,  after  the 
War,  as  a  thank  offering  for  Peace — and 
for  Henry  Vaughan! 

When  one  came  to  know  him,  one  found 


178        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

the  source  of  the  spirit  which  dominated  his 
churches.  He  consented  to  design  for  us  a 
pulpit  in  memory  of  a  former  rector,  and  I 
wished  to  talk  it  over  with  him.  I  found 
him  at  length  on  one  of  the  upper  floors  of 
a  Boston  office  building.  It  was  an  insignifi- 
cant office,  small  and  bare.  He  was  standing 
at  work  behind  a  tall  desk.  He  looked  like 
one  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites — somewhat  as  I 
imagine  Burne- Jones  looked,  only  a  little 
more  remote  from  the  world.  His  face, 
with  its  solemn  eyes,  regular  features,  and 
full  beard,  was  instantly  arresting.  The 
gentleness  of  his  bearing  and  voice  was 
typical  of  his  consideration.  He  waited 
patiently  to  hear  what  must  often  have 
seemed  to  him  the  crudity  of  the  wishes  of 
the  eager  patron.  He  honestly  tried  to  see 
what  one  had  in  mind  and  to  work  it  out. 
Thus  doubtless  he  instilled  humility  into  the 
amateur,  and  his  suggestions,  tentatively 
made,  were  immediately  seen  to  be  what  one 
was  subconsciously  striving  to  attain.  Thus 


HENRY  VAUGHAN. 


HENRY  VAUGHAN  179 

I  have  felt  that  his  building  has  often  ex- 
pressed not  only  the  spirit  of  Henry 
Vaughan,  but  also,  by  his  sympathy,  the 
spirit  of  the  earnest  giver.  In  many  ways 
the  most  beautiful  church  of  his  workman- 
ship is  the  Chapel  of  St.  Boniface,  one  of 
the  chapels  of  the  New  York  Cathedral.  I 
know  how  much  the  givers,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Eowdoin,  of  blessed  memory,  put  of  them- 
selves into  the  happy  project;  and  I  seem 
to  find  that  its  simplicity,  graciousness,  and 
sincerity  are,  through  Mr.  Vaughan's  skill, 
the  revelation  of  what  he  saw  in  them.  He 
had  no  artistic  conceit  to  immortalize  his 
own  ideas:  with  such  dreams  as  God  gave 
him,  he  fused  the  dreams  of  those  who 
pleaded  for  his  help,  and  the  unity  which 
resulted  was  evidence  of  a  generous  willing- 
ness to  listen  as  well  as  to  teach. 

The  little  bare  office  in  Boston  was  typical 
of  his  unworldliness.  It  seemed  a  shrine,  in 
which  no  earthly  or  sordid  thoughts  could 
dwell.  And  the  man  who  stood  behind  the 


180       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

tall  desk  was  like  a  saint  out  of  a  picture. 
I  cannot  recall  any  word  concerning  fees. 
Of  course  his  bills  came  in  due  time,  and 
were  duly  paid.  But  I  cannot  think  of  him 
in  connection  with  money.  It  was  alto- 
gether plain  that  his  art  was  not  a  business, 
but  a  vocation,  with  all  the  sacredness  which 
attaches  to  a  work  imposed  by  God's  com- 
mand. I  don't  know  whether  he  was  rich 
or  poor.  I  think  he  didn't  care. 

I  am  told  that,  though  he  could  have  had 
almost  unlimited  commissions,  he  never 
undertook  work  which  he  could  not  person- 
ally supervise.  This  was  the  reason  for  his 
small  office  and  his  small  staff  of  assistants. 
Everything  which  seemed  to  come  from  him 
did  come  from  him.  This  virtue  had  its 
defects.  Through  his  delay  in  furnishing 
working  drawings  for  a  church,  the  cost  of 
materials  so  increased  that  the  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars  collected  and 
adequate  at  the  time  the  commission  was 
given  him,  was,  when  his  designs  were  ready, 


HENRY  VAUGHAN  181 

less  than  enough  by  fifty  thousand.  If 
money  was  nothing  to  him,  those  for  whom 
he  planned  were  also  obliged  to  learn  to 
subordinate  it.  He  was  unquestionably 
slow.  But  only  so  could  he  work.  And  so, 
inevitably,  many  turned  away  in  discour- 
agement to  seek  help  elsewhere. 

I  learned  to  know  him  best  through  his 
building  the  pulpit  ( of  which  I  have  already 
spoken)  in  memory  of  a  beloved  rector  who 
had  served  his  parish  for  twenty-eight  years. 
The  task  was  relatively  slight,  but  Mr. 
Vaughan  gave  not  only  to  the  plans,  but  to 
the  construction,  as  much  interest  as  if  he 
were  building  a  whole  cathedral.  He  was 
careful  to  regard  the  spirit  of  the  man  who 
was  to  be  commemorated.  Around  the  pul- 
pit were  to  be  the  figures  of  St.  Paul,  St. 
Chrysostom,  Savonarola,  Latimer,  and 
Brooks,  representing  preaching  in  the 
Apostolic  Church,  the  Greek,  Latin,  Eng- 
lish, and  American  Churches.  He  urged 
me  to  come  to  see  these  figures  in  clay  be- 


182        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

fore  the  carving  began,  so  that  they  would 
surely  be  just  as  we  should  like  to  have 
them.  We  met  one  day  at  the  factory,  and 
the  Oberammergau  carver  took  us  into  the 
room  where  he  was  working.  Mr.  Vaughan 
and  I  stood  before  the  five  clay  figures.  St. 
Paul  we  knew  by  his  sword  and  his  book; 
Chrysostom  was  sufficiently  evident;  Sav- 
onarola held  up  his  cross,  and  the  familiar 
outlines  of  his  face  proclaimed  him;  Lati- 
mer  stood  with  his  lantern.  The  fifth 
figure  was  enveloped  in  a  cope ;  a  high  mitre 
was  on  his  head;  a  pastoral  staff  was  in  one 
hand ;  and  the  other  hand,  encased  in  a  glove 
with  a  cross  upon  its  back,  was  giving  a 
blessing.  Mr.  Vaughan  and  I  were  both 
puzzled.  Suddenly  it  dawned  upon  us  that 
the  face  in  the  midst  of  all  this  adornment 
was  the  face  of  Phillips  Brooks!  I  laughed; 
but  Mr.  Vaughan  was  very  serious,  as  he 
turned  to  the  carver  with  the  gentle  ex- 
planation, "  I  hardly  think  this  will  do:  you 
know  he  never  wore  any  of  these  things." 


HENRY  VAUGHAN  183 

It  was  at  length  arranged  to  send  to  the 
carver  a  photograph  of  an  American  bishop 
wearing  the  rochet  and  chimere  of  the  or- 
dinary Anglican  costume.  Meantime  the 
carver  turned  to  me,  with  a  smile.  "You 
know,"  he  said,  "I  admired  him  so  mooch, 
I  vanted  him  to  have  everyting  dere  vas." 
"But  you  know,"  Mr.  Vaughan  expos- 
tulated, "he  never  wore  them."  "Veil,  cer- 
tainly," replied  the  old  carver,  with  a  shrug, 
"I  tink  he  vears  'em  now." 

When  the  pulpit  was  done,  Mr.  Vaughan 
came  to  see  it  in  the  church;  and  he  was 
satisfied.  Through  all  the  years,  though  it 
is  a  very  small  part  of  the  work  he  did  in 
the  world,  it  will  speak  of  the  deeply 
religious  nature,  the  gentleness,  the  genuine- 
ness, the  humility  of  Henry  Vaughan. 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME 

ONE  of  the  unforgettable  experiences 
of  life  is  to  enter  a  great  home- 
that  is,  a  home  which  is  really  a 
home,  and  is  quite  different  from  every 
other  home.  Long  after  the  home  is  broken 
up,  after  the  hallowed  doorstep  is  touched 
only  by  strange  and  careless  feet,  after  all 
the  pictures  and  the  books  and  the  furniture 
have  been  divided  amongst  two  or  three 
generations  of  heirs,  still  the  memory  of  that 
home  stays  in  its  unique  nook  in  the  mind. 
And  so  one  surmises  that  never  in  all  the 
life  of  man  will  there  be  a  home  like  that 
again. 

I  have  known  at  least  one  such  home.  I 
am  told  that  I  was  carried  to  it  as  an  infant ; 
I  remember  it  in  recurring  visits  through 

187 


188        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

my  childhood;  I  saw  it  again  and  again 
through  manhood.  The  last  summer  that 
it  was  a  home  I  spent  a  fortnight  in  it;  and 
I  heard  with  a  pang  of  its  ultimate  dismant- 
ling. I  knew  that  there  was  a  part  of  my- 
self on  which  I  must  shut  to  the  door,  and 
turn  the  key  in  the  lock.  Henceforth  there 
was  only  a  memory.  This  was  the  home  of 
Felix  and  Mary  Brunot  in  Western  Penn- 
sylvania: it  was  a  corner  house  of  brick  in 
Allegheny  in  the  Winter;  it  was  a  wooden 
house  amid  wide  acres  in  Verona  in  the  Sum- 
mer; but  it  was  one  home;  for  one  beautiful 
personality  was  woven  into  the  life  of  both, 
the  united  life  of  a  marriage  made  in 
heaven. 

As  I  grew  to  take  them  less  for  granted, 
I  began  to  discover  what  elements  made 
up  the  characters  of  these  two  people. 
Felix  Brunot  was  the  grandson  of  the  be- 
loved foster-brother  of  Lafayette.  The  two 
brothers  together  came  to  fight  in  the 
American  Revolution,  and  Brunot  re- 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  189 

mained  in  America.  Mary  Brunot  was  the 
daughter  of  an  Englishman  who  had  come 
from  Newcastle  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  chivalry  of  France  and  the  reliability 
of  England  strengthened  each  the  other  in 
this  American  home.  Then  I  learned  of  the 
school  days  of  Felix  Brunot,  spent  under 
the  quick  temper  and  varied  genius  of  John 
Henry  Hopkins,  rector  and  schoolmaster, 
who  later  was  Bishop  of  Vermont.  Mrs. 
Brunot  went  to  a  school  in  Philadelphia: 
she  often  told  me  of  the  journeys  over  the 
mountains  before  the  days  of  railways,  in 
the  cumbersome  stage-coaches,  the  driver 
lashing  his  horses,  and  the  stage  rushing 
down  the  steep  hills  behind  them,  to  what 
seemed  to  the  child  certain  destruction.  The 
outstanding  recollection  of  these  school-days 
in  Philadelphia,  however,  was  the  religious 
awakening  that  came  Sunday  by  Sunday  as 
she  sat  under  the  fiery  eloquence  of  Dr. 
Tyng.  Hopkins  and  Tyng  were,  in  their 
individual  way,  quite  as  potent  in  the  form- 


190        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

ing  of  destiny  as  the  racial  strains  of  France 
and  England:  one  might  have  been  a 
Renaissance  pope,  encouraging  and  loving 
all  the  arts  (only  he  loved  and  practised 
religion  too) ,  the  other  might  have  been  a 
John  the  Baptist  or  a  Savonarola. 

The  town  house  was  filled  with  beautiful 
old  things:  mahogany,  engravings,  por- 
traits, first  editions — but  there  was  no  con- 
sciousness that  they  were  there.  They  had, 
I  suppose,  been  "handed  down"  from  earlier 
times.  Nothing  new  seemed  to  be  bought, 
and  there  were  no  concessions  to  passing 
styles.  The  country  house  was  furnished, 
evidently,  in  the  simplest  possible  way  in 
the  taste  of  the  year  it  was  built — and  so  it 
remained  to  the  end. 

Felix  Brunot,  trained  as  a  civil  engineer, 
early  dropping  all  professional  and  business 
interests  to  devote  himself  to  philanthropy, 
seeing  his  inherited  wealth  increase  in  spite 
of  his  lavish  giving,  was  a  poet  in  face  and 
word.  Tall  and  straight,  with  a  singularly 


Photograph  by  F.  Gutekunst. 

FELIX  REVILLE  BRUNOT. 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  191 

noble  face  crowned  with  long  white  hair,  he 
looked  a  little  like  the  pictures  of  Franz 
Lizst,  only  with  a  greater  beauty  and  dig- 
nity. His  low  voice,  his  serene  kindness, 
his  sense  of  strength,  his  deep  religious 
fervour,  his  unconscious  grace,  contributed 
to  a  personality  quite  different  from  any 
other  that  I  have  ever  known.  One  dis- 
covered that  he  wrote  verse:  Mrs.  Brunot 
would  show  anyone  for  whom  she  cared 
much,  verses  which  he  had  written  to  her.  If 
for  instance  she  had  placed  an  Easter  card 
on  his  plate  on  Easter  morning,  the  card 
would  come  back  to  her  with  his  touching 
and  loving  words  on  the  blank  side,  that  the 
card  might  belong  to  both  of  them.  With 
a  good  deal  of  the  naturalist  in  him  he  saw 
what  most  men  pass  by. 

Mary  Brunot  was  also  tall,  with  a  corre- 
sponding dignity  of  presence.  She  looked 
as  if  she  had  been  created  to  be  the  wife 
cf  Felix  Brunot.  As  I  first  remember  her 
she  wore  her  soft  and  abundant  hair  with 


192        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

little  ringlets  on  either  side  of  her  face,  but 
these  disappeared.  A  whimsical  smile  was 
constantly  playing  about  her  mouth,  and 
her  voice  was  rich  and  vibrant — a  very  un- 
usual voice.  Young  people  were  just  a  lit- 
tle in  awe  of  her:  she  seemed  to  them  too 
religious  and  strict.  But  all  the  influence 
of  Dr.  Tyng  could  not  rob  her  of  her  in- 
nate humanism.  She  was  patient  when  a 
niece  or  a  nephew  giggled  at  family 
prayers;  and  no  ridiculous  aspect  of  the 
people  about  her  escaped  her.  When  she 
laughed,  she  carried  everything  before  her. 
To  please  Mr.  Brunot  she  would  wear  cloth- 
ing of  the  finest  stuffs :  to  please  herself  and 
the  Puritan  within  her,  she  had  this  cloth- 
ing made  with  the  most  uncompromising 
plainness.  There  is  no  doubt  that  she  was 
a  quaint,  as  well  as  a  stately,  figure.  A 
young  clergyman,  on  hearing  Mrs.  Brunot's 
name  spoken,  said  one  day  to  Deaconess 
Sibyl  Carter  (who  loved  Mrs.  Brunot  as 
a  daughter  loves  a  mother),  "Doesn't  she 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  193 

look  as  if  she  came  out  of  the  ark?"  "Young 
man,"  said  Miss  Carter,  the  smile  instantly 
fading  from  her  face,  "she  is  one  of  the  two 
or  three  people  in  the  world  worthy  of  go- 
ing into  the  ark!" 

There  were  no  sons  and  daughters  in  this 
home;  but  it  was  a  rare  day  when  there 
were  not  nieces  and  nephews.  It  was  for 
most  of  them  a  good  deal  more  than  a 
second  home.  They  said  "Uncle"  and 
"Auntie"  without  further  designation. 
There  was  a  sense  of  ownership  on  both 
sides  close  to  parenthood.  This  was  no 
silent  home  where  the  tears  and  laughter  of 
children  were  absent:  it  was  a  Mecca  for 
children.  The  coachman's  children,  too,*came 
up  from  the  lodge,  in  both  town  and  coun- 
try, every  morning  before  breakfast,  and 
shared  in  family  prayers.  Each  guest, 
servant,  and  child  took  turns  with  the 
master  and  mistress,  in  reading  a  verse  of 
the  chapter;  then  after  Mr.  Brunot  had 
read  the  prayers,  the  coachman's  children 


194        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

stood  in  a  row  before  Mrs.  Brunot,  and  she 
heard  them  each  say  a  verse  from  the  Bible 
and  a  verse  from  a  hymn.  If  they  stumbled, 
she  made  light  of  it,  and  helped  them 
through.  Afterward  she  gave  them  a  bit  of 
gay  advice  and  sent  them  off  with  the  let- 
ters. It  was  hard  for  a  guest  to  keep  back 
the  tears  as  he  saw  this  relic  of  patriarchal 
simplicity,  and  thought  what  it  must  mean 
for  the  children  all  their  lives  long. 

On  Sunday  afternoons  these  same 
children  came  into  the  drawing  room  to  say 
verses  and  to  hear  chapters  from  a  story 
book — first  a  boys'  book,  then  a  girls'.  All 
the  guests  came  in,  and  each  said  his  verse 
with*  the  children.  Mrs.  Brunot,  who  was 
always  the  reader,  confessed  how  interested 
she  became  in  the  books;  and  the  Dr.  Tyng 
part  of  her  wondered  if  it  were  quite  right 
to  read  such  interesting  books  on  Sunday 
afternoon,  but  the  humanism  conquered. 
Then  someone  sat  down  at  the  little  organ, 
and  we  sang  one  of  Mr.  Brunot's  hymns; 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  195 

and  the  nice  children  shook  hands  and  went 
away. 

The  guests  included  chiefly  bishops  and 
other  missionaries  who  were  working  hard 
in  distant  places.  If  they  were  not  there 
to  tell  in  person  their  varied  experiences, 
there  was  apt  to  be,  after  breakfast,  the 
reading  of  letters  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  It  was  not  difficult  to  guess  why 
there  was  rigid  simplicity  in  this  home:  it 
was  pleasanter  to  cheer  up  a  hero  in  Africa 
or  China  than  to  have  a  new  carpet.  I 
remember  that  Mrs.  Brunot  once  told  me 
that  one  of  her  disciplines  was  to  think  what 
she  would  do  if  she  woke  up  some  morning 
stripped  of  every  penny.  She  rather 
thought  that  she  could  start  out  blithely  be- 
fore noon  to  do  someone's  washing  and  to 
scrub  down  somebody's  stairs — if  only  the 
neuralgia,  to  which  she  was  subject,  were 
not  very  bad.  Indeed  she  thought  she 
could  be  perfectly  happy.  Probably,  for 
the  moment,  she  forgot  what  would  happen 


196        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

in  Africa  and  China,  if  some  worldly  and 
selfish  person  acquired  the  money.  For 
after  Mr.  Brunot's  illness  began,  her  busi- 
ness adviser  was  obliged  to  tell  her  from*  time 
to  time  that  she  had  given  away  more  than 
her  income,  and  she  must  not  be  so  dishonest 
as  to  overdraw  her  bank  account. 

One  fall  when  Mr.  Brunot  was  at  his 
fishing  club  on  Lake  Erie,  his  boat  upset, 
and  he  was  for  many  hours  in  the  cold  water. 
Paralysis  began,  which,  creeping  farther 
and  farther,  robbed  him  of  speech,  and  for 
thirteen  years  he  was  an  invalid,  pitiful,  yet 
still  serene.  In  his  face  was  the  same  purity 
and  grace,  the  same  dignity  and  authority, 
but  also  a  look  of  wonder  and  perplexity. 
His  face,  as  he  sat  among  us  in  his  silence, 
was  as  the  memory  of  a  glorious  day:  we 
knew  that  he  was  only  waiting  for  the  end. 
Then  Mrs.  Brunot  rose  to  the  greatness  of 
her  love.  She  went  to  her  own  boards  and 
meetings,  she  wrote  all  the  letters  which  her 
interests  and  enthusiasms  bade  her  write; 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  197 

and  then  she  did  his  work  too.  She  spoke 
for  him,  she  wrote  for  him — though  only  the 
deep  love  in  his  eyes  could  tell  her  what  to 
say:  he  could  not  write,  he  could  not  speak. 
The  separation  called  death  came;  but  she 
weni  on  saying  "we,"  when  she  spoke  of  all 
her  plans  and  work.  "I  suppose,"  she  said, 
"I  ought  to  stop  saying  'we' — but  I  cannot 
help  it."  Of  course  her  instinct  to  say  it 
was  right. 

The  last  visit  I  made  was  at  Verona.  Mrs. 
Brunot,  now  quite  alone,  told  me  with  a  nat- 
ural poise  of  all  the  beautiful  past  together 
— of  the  courtship,  of  the  experience  on  the 
frontier,  of  Mr.  Brunot's  part  in  the  civil 
war  when  he  all  but  gave  his  life  in  the 
Sanitary  Commission,  of  their  summer 
journeys  over  the  Western  plains  to  visit 
wild  Indian  tribes,  when  Mr.  Brunot  was 
President  of  the  Indian  Commission,  of 
days  abroad  and  at  home,  of  their  friends 
and  heroes.  I  walked  over  the  broad  estate 
at  Verona,  and  remembered  how  Mr. 


198        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Brunot  had  led  me  by  the  hand  when  I 
was  a  child,  showing  me  the  rock-fountain 
he  had  builded  with  his  own  hands,  the  vista 
he  had  opened  to  the  Allegheny,  the  cool 
spring  under  the  hill.  I  remembered  how, 
when  I  was  nearly  ready  for  my  work,  we 
went  together  the  same  familiar  round;  and 
he  spoke  affectionate  words  about  my 
father,  who  had  been  his  rector  and  friend, 
and  added  that  if  he  had  his  life  to  live  over, 
he  would  be  in  the  Ministry  too.  I  even 
went,  by  Mrs.  Brunot's  wish,  to  look  again 
at  the  town  house,  and  to  pick  out  some  of 
Mr.  Brunot's  books  which  I  might  like  to 
keep  for  his  sake.  It  was  all  just  as  I  had 
remembered  it  from  the  beginning.  Only 
it  was  becoming  very  far  down  town,  and 
I  knew  that  it  must  soon  cease  to  be  any- 
body's home.  I  went  out  again  with  Mrs. 
Brunot  in  her  carriage,  and  she  would  stop 
in  passing  through  some  rough  neighbour- 
hood to  call  dirty  children  up  to  the  carriage 
window.  She  would  laugh,  say  a  few  words 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  199 

v 

to  them,  and  then  draw  out  of  the  pocket 
in  the  door  a  children's  tract,  which  she  was 
sure  that  they  would  like.  I  don't  care  much 
for  tracts;  but  she  knew  children,  and  I  am 
sure  that  she  picked  out  tracts  which  were 
really  interesting,  and  sane,  and  hopeful.  I 
am  sure  that  the  children  went  home  to  tell 
their  mother  of  the  pretty  old  lady  with  the 
smile  who  had  stopped  to  talk  and  to  give 
them  a  little  book — and  the  mother  doubt- 
less knew  who  it  was,  and  read  the  story 
aloud,  and  thought  of  the  day  when  she  was 
sick  and  Mrs.  Brunot  had  sent  her  good 
things  to  eat,  and  had  eased  the  burden  of 
living  by  quiet  and  cheering  words.  Tracts 
from  such  a  source  meant  something. 

And  that  last  Summer  there  were  the 
visitors.  There  were  the  brilliant  and  the 
wise,  who  sat  in  the  drawing  room  and  ate 
with  Mrs.  Brunot;  and  there  were  the  very 
humble  who  wandered  about  the  paths  pick- 
ing flowers  and  eating  with  the  servants. 
These  latter  guests  came  from  Mrs. 


200        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Brunot's  various  charitable  institutions:  she 
wanted  them  to  spend  their  day  in  the  coun- 
try in  the  way  they  would  feel  freest  and 
most  comfortable.  She  herself  would  have 
been  glad  to  have  them  at  her  own  table, 
but  her  imagination  told  her  how  their  ap- 
petite would  have  been  cramped.  There 
was  a  radiant  democracy  binding  her  to  all 
her  fellows,  but  her  sound  sense  never  led 
her  to  treating  everybody  alike.  She  was 
inspired  to  do  the  thing  each  liked  best.  She 
never  went  to  town  in  the  summer  without 
a  huge  bouquet  in  her  hand.  She  would 
give  it  away,  bit  by  bit,  in  the  hot  and  dirty 
city,  especially  to  girls  sitting  in  the  dreary 
railway  station,  looking  forlorn  and  home- 
sick. Once  more  her  imagination  told  her 
what  a  woman's  kindness  might  mean  be- 
fore the  morning's  sun  shone  again.  She 
was  both  a  personality  and  an  institution. 
'3he  had  presided  at  so  many  boards  that 
she  was  a  board  of  directors  in  herself. 
The  prosperous  world  about  Mrs. 


Photograph  by  H.  Bower. 


MARY  H.  BRUNOT. 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  201 

Brunot,  of  which  in  ordinary  circumstances 
she  would  have  been  a  part,  and  from  which 
she  made  no  effort  to  separate  herself, 
looked  on  with  amusement  and  admiration. 
She  simply  had  no  time  for  anyone  who  was 
not  doing  something  to  help  someone  else. 
She  didn't  despise  selfish  people;  she  simply 
forgot  that  there  were  any  such  people. 
Yet,  in  a  measure,  she  knew  what  went  on 
in  the  world,  and  she  said  her  emphatic  word 
against  any  custom  or  usage  which  she  felt 
to  be  wrong,  however  the  world  tolerated  or 
encouraged  it.  One  day  she  was  telling  an 
interesting  and  able  woman,  who  lived  near 
her,  how  wicked  she  thought  it  to  play  cards 
for  prizes :  it  was,  she  thought,  indistinguish- 
ably  close  to  playing  for  money,  which  was 
exactly  gambling,  and  nothing  else.  This 
lady  found  Mrs.  Brunot's  words  so  convinc- 
ing that  she  regretted  having  accepted  an 
invitation  (which  she  felt  that  she  must 
accept)  to  a  house  where  she  knew  that 
cards  were  to  be  played.  She  said  to  herself 


202        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

that  of  course  she  could  not  win  a  prize, 
since  she  did  not  know  even  how  to  play  the 
game.  So  far  she  was  safe.  Her  husband 
assured  her  that  the  game  was  perfectly 
simple,  the  only  rule  to  remember  was, 
''Risk  everything."  She  went,  sat  down, 
Brisked  everything,"  and  came  home  with  a 
large  silver  object — the  first  prize!  She 
told  me  that  she  kept  thinking  of  dear  Mrs. 
Brunot's  face,  and  while  she  laughed  alone 
in  her  carriage,  coming  home,  till  the  tears 
ran  down  her  cheeks,  she  felt  exactly  as  if 
she  had  broken  into  Mrs.  Brunot's  house 
and  stolen  all  her  silver. 

Mrs.  Brunot  found  the  new  ways  which 
were  coming  over  the  Church  very  trying. 
A  sermon  on  Jonah,  frankly  cognizant  of 
higher  criticism,  quite  upset  her.  After  I 
was  ordained,  she  would  take  me  into  a 
corner  now  and  then  and  ask  me  the  mean- 
ing of  this  or  that  which  she  had  noticed  in 
a  service  recently.  "Why,"  she  would  say, 
"did  the  minister  turn  his  back  upon  the 


A  PENNSYLVANIA  HOME  203 

congregation  after  his  sermon?  If  it  doesn't 
mean  anything  and  'he  just  does  it,'  it  seems 
to  me  very  bad  manners.  And  if  it  does 
mean  anything — I  don't  like  it."  At  an- 
other time  she  told  me  of  a  missionary  meet- 
ing for  women  in  some  city  church.  "There 
was  a  visiting  bishop,"  she  said,  "who  did 
very  strange  things  which  I  never  saw  done 
before;  and,  dear  me!"  she  added,  "I  hope 
our  bishop  didn't  see  him — for  if  he  did, 
he'll  be  doing  them  too!" 

She  had  her  days  of  physical  pain,  and 
every  day  she  was  lonely  without  her  dear 
companion  of  a  lifetime ;  but  she  ran  up  and 
down  the  stairs  like  a  girl,  she  went  to  her 
meetings,  she  drove  through  the  familiar 
streets  in  town,  and  over  the  country  roads. 
And  then  came  the  great  change,  fittingly 
enough,  on  an  All  Saints'  Day.  It  seemed 
impossible  for  a  moment  to  think  of  the 
world  without  her  and  the  home  which  had 
been  her  background.  And  then  the  com- 
fort came  in  the  remembrance  that  some 


204        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

things  on  earth  are  so  good  and  honourable 
that  they  are  the  promise  of  eternal  realities. 
The  maker  of  a  home  must  be  able  to  take 
the  spirit  of  a  home  wherever  she  may  go; 
and  so  we  may  venture  to  translate  a  cer- 
tain august  pledge  of  the  Master  into  the 
assurance  that  the  place  to  which  He  has 
led  the  way,  is  a  place  of  many  homes.  If 
so,  one  such  home  of  perpetual  joy,  I  am 
sure  I  know. 


BISHOP  HARE 


BISHOP  HARE 

ONE  Autumn  evening  in  the  later 
Eighties  there  was  a  public  meet- 
ing in  Sanders  Theatre  in  Cam- 
bridge in  behalf  of  the  American  Indian. 
As  an  American  youth  I  was  glad  of  a 
chance  to  hear  about  the  Indian;  but  the 
chief  attraction  of  the  meeting  for  me  was 
that  Bishop  Hare,  whom  I  had  long  wished 
to  see,  was  to  speak.  He  had  then  been 
Bishop  of  South  Dakota  for  many  years. 
We  expected  that  we  should  see  a  man 
touched  with  the  rough  force  of  the  frontier, 
who,  in  spite  of  his  gentle  upbringing  in 
Philadelphia,  would  be  what  we  thought  a 
man  must  become  after  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  as  Bishop  to  the  Indians.  But  he 
looked  and  spoke  only  as  the  exquisite  gen- 

207 


208        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

tleman  he  was.  He  might  have  belonged  to 
the  tribe  of  cultivated  Americans  who  refuse 
to  travel  west  of  Buffalo.  One  who  did  not 
know,  would  never  have  dreamed  that  he 
made  it  his  chief  business  to  travel  back  and 
forth  over  the  plains  ministering  to  the  sim- 
ple needs  of  the  aboriginal  American. 

I  can  still  recall  the  surprise  expressed  by 
certain  distinguished  members  of  the 
Harvard  faculty  that  a  man  could  give  his 
first  attention  to  Indians  and  yet  speak  to 
a  Harvard  audience  as  hardly  anyone  had 
spoken  for  years.  There  was  an  elegance 
and  distinction,  together  with  perfect  sim- 
plicity, about  his  appearance,  bearing,  and 
utterance,  which  one  associated  only  with 
perpetual  contact  with  great  centres.  The 
dazed  professors  were  rather  nettled  that 
they  hadn't  known  about  this  unique  person 
before. 

I  can  see  him,  in  my  memory,  as  he  stood 
that  night  before  a  somewhat  critical  audi- 
ence. He  spoke  with  the  natural  ease  of 


BISHOP  HARE  209 

one  who  was  speaking  with  his  friend.  His 
face  was  rarely  beautiful,  with  both  strength 
and  sweetness.  The  clear  sentences,  the 
swift  intelligence,  the  interesting  informa- 
tion, the  clean-cutting  humour  all  appealed 
to  what  Harvard  most  admired.  The  pic- 
ture of  the  man  is  vivid;  but  I  can  recall 
only  one  fragment  of  the  speech.  He  had 
been  saying  how  unfair  it  was  to  judge  all 
Indians  by  some  conspicuous  rascal.  "Just 
think,"  he  said,  "how  unfair  it  would  be  to 
judge  the  white  man  as  we  often  judge  the 
Indian.  For  instance,"  he  went  on,  "there 
was  an  institution  which  one  year  graduated 
four  young  men.  Within  twenty  years  one 
of  these  men  had  robbed  a  bank,  one  had 
committed  murder,  another  died  in  a 
drunken  brawl,  and  the  fourth  was — my- 
self." (I  must  confess  that  my  memory 
fails  me  just  what  the  crimes  were,  so  I 
draw  on  my  imagination  to  that  extent;  but 
I  am  sure  that  he  mentioned  three  quite 
lively  criminals.  And  I  can  still  remember 


210        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

how  we  all  jumped  with  amazement  when 
he  reached  his  climax.  Several  seconds 
passed  before  we  gathered  ourselves  to- 
gether for  the  laughter  which  followed.) 

I  next  saw  Bishop  Hare  at  a  boys'  school, 
to  which  he  often  went  because  his  nephews 
were  pupils  there,  and  also  because  the  boys 
annually  made  him  a  large  gift  for  his  In- 
dians. He  captivated  the  boys  quite  as 
promptly  as  the  Harvard  professors,  partly 
because  they  instinctively  recognized  what  a 
fine  gentleman  he  was;  and  partly  because 
he  told  in  a  thrilling  way  most  exciting  In- 
dian stories.  The  way  the  boys  raised  their 
Indian  money  was  to  have  a  paper  Indian 
pinned  to  the  wall  in  the  big  school  room. 
A  skilful  sixth  former  had  made  out  of 
paper  all  manner  of  Indian  belongings 
from  a  pony  to  a  feather.  This  clothing 
and  equipment  were  sold  at  auction,  piece 
by  piece,  to  the  highest  bidder.  The  room 
became  like  the  stock  exchange  in  a  panic, 
and  the  masters  kept  a  watchful  eye  on  the 


Photograph  by  Elmer  Chickering. 


BISHOP  HARE. 


BISHOP  HARE  211 

little  boys,  who  were  apt  to  bid  all  their 
pocket  money  for  the  next  six  months. 
When  a  belated  master  asked  what  had 
happened  to  the  school  room,  a  small  first 
former  would  answer,  "Oh,  nothin',  Sir;  we 
just  had  Bishop  Hare's  auction." 

A  little  later  I  went  to  live  in  a  diocese 
next  to  Bishop  Hare's.  And  there  the 
reverence  for  him  was  even  greater  than  in 
the  Eastern  College  and  the  Eastern 
School.  This  was  because  he  and  his  work 
were  more  intimately  known.  News  came 
to  us  that,  at  the  General  Convention  in 
Washington  in  1898,  the  whole  Church  kept 
his  twenty -fifth  anniversary  as  Bishop.  We 
exulted  in  the  story  which  Bishop  Potter 
told  of  a  dinner  in  London,  when  some 
Englishman  asked  the  Bishop  of  New  York 
who  the  very  handsome  clergyman  was 
across  the  table.  "That,"  said  Bishop  Pot- 
ter, "is  the  Missionary  Bishop  of  South 
Dakota."  "Oh,"  said  the  blase  questioner, 
"only  a  missionary  bishop."  Then  Bishop 


CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Potter  said  there  came  to  him  the  memory 
of  Thackeray's  description  of  Swift's  find- 
ing in  a  desk  a  lock  of  Stella's  hair,  the 
paper  enclosing  it  being  marked  with  the 
words,  "Only  a  woman's  hair."  Then 
Thackeray  makes  his  comment:  "Only  a 
woman's  hair;  only  love,  only  fidelity,  only 
purity,  innocence,  beauty;  only  the  tender- 
est  heart  in  the  world." 

A  good  many  people  were  in  the  habit 
of  saying:  "Why  should  a  man  like  Bishop 
Hare  have  been  sent  to  the  frontier?  Why 
not  some  rough  and  ready  person,  loud  and 
aggressive?  Then  Bishop  Hare  might  have 
been  saved  for  some  place  capable  of  ap- 
preciating his  charm  and  power."  No  one 
would  have  dared  to  make  such  a  silly 
speech  to  one  of  Bishop  Hare's  Indians. 
Even  to  look  at  the  picture  of  a  meeting  of 
Bishop  Hare's  Indian  Convocation  would 
convince  the  most  unimaginative  of  what 
Bishop  Hare  meant  to  the  appreciation  of 
the  dignified  Indian  tribesman.  A  long  row 


BISHOP  HARE  213 

of  kneeling  Indians,  out  under  the  open 
sky,  with  Bishop  Hare  kneeling  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  line,  tells  at  one  glance  what  his 
leadership  was.  It  is  one  of  the  fallacies  of 
the  academic  mind  that  anybody  will  do  for 
leadership  on  the  frontier.  There  is  some- 
thing about  the  open-air  life,  accustomed  to 
broad  stretches  of  sky  and  the  clean  earth, 
which  appreciates,  as  the  man  of  the  city  can- 
not appreciate,  all  the  niceties  and  careful- 
ness of  the  gentleman.  When  I  lived  in  Min- 
nesota, the  frontier  had  moved  far  to  the 
westward,  but  I  knew  in  my  congregation 
men  who  remembered  the  days  of  the  pioneer, 
One  of  the  details  most  often  recalled  of  the 
pioneer  missionary  was  that  when  he  walked 
several  miles  to  officiate  in  a  mission  chapel, 
he  never  entered  the  chancel  in  the  shoes  in 
which  he  had  made  the  dusty  journey.  He 
kept  in  the  robing-room  a  pair  of  clean 
shoes  which  he  put  on  for  the  service.  My 
friends  even  remembered  that  they  were 
"patent  leather" !  Part  of  their  love  for  him 


214       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

was  contained  in  this  nice  appreciation  of 
what  was  fitting  in  "the  courts  of  the  Lord's 
House."  If  one  has  rough  and  noisy  people 
to  place,  let  them  be  put  in  the  great  centre 
where  there  are  people  of  all  sorts  to  satisfy. 
The  frontier  must  have  the  gentleman  al- 
ways, and  he  will  be  loved  for  many  reasons, 
one  of  them  being  because  he  is  a  gentle- 
man. 

It  was  often  asked  how  a  man  of  Bishop 
Hare's  apparently  delicate  physique  and 
sensibilities  could  survive  Indian  hospitality 
on  his  long  missionary  journeys  through  the 
Indian  country.  That  was  a  difficulty 
which  he  frankly  faced,  and  his  common 
sense  and  his  courtesy  solved  it  without  de- 
stroying his  digestion  or  hurting  the  feel- 
ings of  his  Indian  flock.  After  due  and 
satisfactory  explanation  he  travelled  about 
with  a  tent  and  a  cook,  and  the  whole 
"Episcopal  Palace"  went  wherever  the 
Bishop  went.  Doubtless  he  lived  longer  as 
Bishop  of  South  Dakota  than  he  would 


BISHOP  HARE  215 

have  lived  in  any  other  diocese  of  the 
Church.  He  neither  expected  nor  desired 
any  pity  for  visitations  which  made  him  only 
the  more  rugged  and  brought  him  to  people 
who  gave  him  trust  and  love  nowhere  to  be 
excelled. 

Because  I  lived  in  a  town  where  there  was 
a  theological  school  and  therefore  knew  a 
good  many  younger  clergy  or  those  about 
to  enter  the  Ministry,  he  would  often  ask 
me  questions  about  men.  I  received  a 
telegram  one  day  asking  if  I  would  be  at 
home  that  evening,  and  if  he  might  drop  in 
upon  me.  I  tried  to  persuade  him  really  to 
break  his  long  journey,  and  to  stay  with 
me  for  at  least  the  night.  But  he  said  that 
it  was  impossible,  for  he  must  be  at  home; 
so  he  stayed  only  a  few  hours  and 
caught  a  midnight  train  for  Sioux  Falls. 
Meantime  he  plied  me  with  keen  and  search- 
ing questions  about  men  for  certain  stations 
which  he  described.  He  was  alert,  and  had, 
I  thought,  a  thorough  mastery  of  every 


216        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

corner  of  his  district :  for  he  was  clear  about 
just  the  sort  of  man  he  needed  for  each 
place.  It  was  not  easy  to  sleep  after  I  had 
come  home  from  the  station:  I  kept  think- 
ing about  an  old  man  who,  as  a  good 
shepherd,  seemed  never  to  relax  his  watch- 
fulness over  the  sheep  committed  to  his 
care. 

The  next  time  I  saw  him  after  this  was 
at  a  Missionary  Council.  There  was  a 
covering  over  one  eye.  We  whispered  to 
one  another  that  the  sight  of  the  eye  was 
gone  and  that  a  most  painful  disease  had 
set  in  which  could  end  only  in  death.  But 
he  seemed  unconscious  of  it  all.  The  beauty 
was  not  gone;  if  anything  it  was  intensified 
by  the  heroic  bearing  of  suffering.  And  his 
word  was  still  with  power.  It  was  good  to 
sit  beside  him  and  to  talk  on  personal 
themes;  it  was  even  better  to  sit  among  the 
people  and  to  hear  him  speak  to  us  all,  and 
to  feel  the  devotion  which  his  face  and  his 
word  aroused.  Bishop  Whipple  was  gone: 


BISHOP  HARE  217 

he  was  now  the  Grand  Old  Man  of  our  wide 
Northwest.  He  could  not  help  knowing 
the  affectionate  loyalty  of  the  whole  Church. 
Not  long  after  this  I  became  the  rector 
of  an  Eastern  parish.  I  was  one  morning 
called  to  the  telephone.  The  voice  said,  to 
my  amazement:  "I  am  Bishop  Hare;  I  am 
at  Bishop  Vinton's.  Could  you  possibly 
come  up  to  see  me?"  Of  course  I  said  Yes; 
I  dropped  everything,  delighted  at  the 
thought  of  seeing  him  once  more;  and 
started  at  once.  I  found  him  quite  the  same 
cheerful,  self-forgetting  person  as  of  old, 
but  the  wound  on  the  face  was  larger.  I 
knew  that  there  could  not  be  many  months 
more  of  suffering.  After  a  few  personal 
words,  he  began  briskly:  "I  want  your  ad- 
vice about  three  men,  all  of  whom  you  know. 
I  have  high-sounding  letters  from  bishops 
recommending  them — but  I  don't  care  any- 
thing about  bishops'  recommendations." 
Bishop  Vinton,  well  endowed  with  humour, 
coughed  a  dry  little  cough,  and  said,  "Bishop 


218        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

Hare,  wouldn't  you  rather  I  went  out?*' 
"Oh,  no,"  said  Bishop  Hare  laughing;  "I 
don't  mind  you:  you  can  stay."  Then  he 
turned  to  me,  saying,  "Now  I  am  going  to 
describe  these  three  men,  one  by  one,  just 
as  they  appear  to  me;  and  I  want  you  to 
tell  me  if  I  am  right."  He  took  up  one; 
described  his  personal  habits,  his  abilities,  his 
limitations.  It  was  all  so  picturesque  as 
well  as  accurate  that  I  laughed  in  spite  of 
myself.  "Then  you  agree  to  that?"  he  asked. 
"Yes,"  I  said,  "to  the  last  syllable."  So  he 
took  up  the  second  and  the  third;  and  when 
he  was  done,  it  was  as  if  he  had  read  my 
own  mind.  I  could  only  confirm  his 
estimates.  Just  then  the  telephone  bell 
rang,  and  Bishop  Vinton,  who  answered  it, 
reported  that  it  was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Faithope 
of  Providence,  who  wished  to  speak  to 
Bishop  Hare.  When  Bishop  Hare  had  dis- 
appeared into  the  hall  to  answer  the  mes- 
sage, Bishop  Vinton  smiled  and  said  with  a 
twitch  at  his  beard,  "Do  you  know  any  gos- 


BISHOP  HARE  219 

sip  about  Mr.  Faithope  of  Providence?" 
Then  Bishop  Vinton  added,  "Faithope  told 
me  just  now  on  the  telephone  that  he  was 
free  to  move,  though  the  relations  between 
him  and  his  parish  were  of  the  pleasantest, 
and  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
move.  .  .  .  Ever  hear  anything  like  that 
before?"  And  so  in  a  few  minutes  I  de- 
parted, leaving  two  gay  and  happy  bishops. 

I  never  saw  Bishop  Hare  again,  and  I 
was  glad  that  I  saw  him  last  in  the  sunlight. 
I  forgot  the  shadow  that  was  hanging  over 
him;  and  I  suspect  that  to  him  it  was  no 
shadow.  It  was  only  the  beckoning  towards 
the  brighter  day. 

Just  after  Bishop  Hare's  death,  I  became 
rector  of  still  another  parish.  A  neighbour 
told  me  that  some  of  Bishop  Hare's  Indians 
were  in  the  Wild  West  Show,  which  was 
being  played  not  many  blocks  from  my 
church.  My  neighbour  said  that  these  In- 
dians were  eager  to  receive  the  Holy  Com- 
munion. Could  I  by  any  chance  provide  the 


220        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

service  for  them?  Grateful  for  the  chance 
of  serving  Bishop  Hare's  Indians  in  any 
way,  I  asked  him  to  say  how  gladly  I  should 
provide  the  service  at  any  hour  convenient 
for  them.  A  day  and  an  hour  were  fixed. 
Our  organist  and  choristers  shared  in  the 
service.  One  small  boy,  in  the  infirmary, 
informed  the  matron,  "I  just  have  to  get 
up,  and  go  to  that  service" — and  he  went! 
The  time  between  the  morning  rehearsal 
and  the  afternoon  performance  of  the  Wild 
West  Show  was  so  short  that  the  Indians 
who  came  to  the  church  were  not  allowed 
to  remove  their  paint  and  feathers.  So  in 
all  their  barbaric  splendour  they  came  down 
the  great  thoroughfare,  and  all  the  city 
seemed  to  come  with  them.  They  sat  in  the 
front  pews,  and  the  crowds  poured  in  behind 
them.  The  Indians  were  as  unconscious  of 
the  crowds  as  they  were  of  their  war-finery. 
They  fixed  their  eyes  on  the  white-robed 
choristers  and  the  stately  sanctuary.  They 
sang  two  verses  of  "Rock  of  Ages"  in  Da- 


BISHOP  HARE 

kota,  and  then,  in  due  time,  they  came  up 
with  reverent  dignity  to  receive  the  Holy 
Communion.  I  forgot  the  paint  and  feathers, 
even  as  they  forgot  them.  They  were  kneel- 
ing to  receive  the  strength  of  Christ  for  their 
journey.  I  knew  that  they  thought  of  their 
dear  leader,  as  I  was  thinking  of  him;  and 
so  thinking,  we  were  all  nearer  to  our 
Master  and  his,  the  Lord  Jesus. 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON 


WILLIAM    REED    HUNTINGTON 

WILLIAM  REED  HUNTING- 
TON  was  one  of  the  most  versa- 
tile men  of  his  time.  He  did  many 
things  with  extraordinary  excellence.  Glad 
to  be  known  always  as  a  Christian  minister, 
he  brought  into  his  vocation  a  richness  and 
variety  which  gave  the  man  of  the  world  a 
new  conception  of  what  it  was  to  be  a  clergy- 
man. He  wrote  a  good  deal  of  verse;  with 
depth  of  feeling  he  united  exactness  of  ex- 
pression and  beauty  of  phrasing,  so  deserv- 
ing the  title  of  poet.  He  found  in  the 
General  Convention  opportunity  to  exer- 
cise a  remarkable  skill  in  lively  and  brilliant 
debate.  He  revived  the  order  of  deacon- 
esses, establishing  in  New  York  a  perma- 
nent school  for  their  training.  He  built  up 

225 


226        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

and  administered  a  great  institutional 
parish,  meantime  yielding  profound  interest 
to  the  construction  of  a  metropolitan 
cathedral.  He  was  an  able  preacher,  giving 
to  people  the  concise  account  of  a  thorough 
knowledge  and  a  sensitive  experience.  He 
was  the  friend  of  other  clergymen,  a  sort 
of  archbishop,  consulted  by  men  young  and 
old  who  felt  sure  that  he  would  gladly  stop 
his  busy  life  to  hear  their  tale.  It  made  no 
difference  to  him  whether  they  lived  in  a 
neighbouring  street  or  an  island  in  the 
Pacific;  he  was  interested  in  them  all — he 
was  their  brother  in  a  wide  brotherhood  of 
service.  With  all  this  variety  of  work  joy- 
fully undertaken,  he  was  first  of  all  a  pastor, 
going  from  house  to  house  in  the  parish 
which  was  his  primary  duty,  proving  him- 
self a  tender  and  loving  shepherd  of  in- 
dividual souls. 

Early  in  my  life  I  came  to  know  this  man 
by  reputation.  Then  I  chanced  to  sit  in  this 
congregation  or  that  convention  as  the 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      227 

power  of  his  personality  smote  across  its 
life.  At  length  I  came  to  know  him,  and 
I  think  he  counted  me  a  friend.  I  certainly 
looked  up  to  him  as  one  of  my  masters. 

I  saw  him  first  in  a  college  chapel,  to 
which  he  had  come  to  preach  a  Sunday  even- 
ing sermon.  I  remember  the  clearness  and 
crispness  of  the  faultless  English;  I  remem- 
ber that  I  had  a  student's  respect  for  the 
well-ordered  and  dignified  presentation  of  a 
solid  argument;  but  I  was  not  impressed, 
as  I  was  later  impressed,  by  the  man's  fire. 
I  heard  him  afterwards  in  the  General  Con- 
vention and  in  Church  Congresses ;  I  believe 
I  never  heard  him  preach  again,  so  that  I 
cannot  properly  speak  of  his  qualities  as  a 
preacher;  but  I  have  the  impression  that  he 
did  not  let  himself  go  in  a  sermon  as  he 
freed  himself  in  less  formal  utterances.  It 
may  have  been  part  of  his  Puritan  inheri- 
tance that  he  exercised  restraint  and  reserve 
in  a  sermon,  as  fitting  reverence  towards  the 
house  of  God.  But,  more  than  that,  his 


228        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

parishioners  for  twenty-one  years  at  All 
Saints',  Worcester,  and  for  twenty-six 
years  at  Grace  Church,  New  York,  would 
say  that  it  was  because  he  weighed  his  words 
and  scrupulously  taught  exactly  what  he 
had  proved  in  his  own  life.  That  is  why  his 
preaching  sank  deep  into  their  hearts:  life 
and  words  went  together.  When  he  was 
dying  he  dictated  the  message,  "Have  my 
people  told  that  I  die  in  the  faith  which  I 
have  preached  to  them,  and  that  it  has 
brought  me  peace  at  the  last."  They  under- 
stood. 

I  next  heard  him  speak  at  a  School  Prize 
Day.  He  was  amusing  and  delightful,  not 
by  telling  any  story  or  anecdote,  but  by  a 
whimsical  humour  which  held  the  youngest 
boy  as  it  held  the  oldest  parent.  He  said 
that  at  a  recent  dinner  party  an  alumnus  of 
the  school  had  warned  him  not  to  spend  his 
speech  in  praising  the  headmaster — the  boys 
were  very  tired  of  hearing  the  prize  day 
orator  pour  out  the  praise.  "So,"  said  Dr. 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      229 

Huntington,  "though  I  have  the  highest  re- 
gard for  your  headmaster,  though  I  know 
his  genius  as  a  guide  of  youth,  though  I 
value  his  personal  friendship  for  us  all,  yet 
ten  thousand  horses  all  pulling  together 
could  not  drag  this  opinion  out  of  me." 
Afterwards  I  had  a  chance  to  talk  with  him 
alone.  We  had  both  been  reading  Bishop 
Clark's  Reminiscences,  and  I  said  how  odd 
it  seemed  to  be  reading  these  gay  and  witty 
papers  in  the  pages  of  a  staid  theological 
magazine.  "Yes,"  he  answered  instantly, 
"it's  like  opening  a  bottle  of  champagne  in 
a  hearse." 

Years  passed.  I  read  his  speeches,  his 
articles,  his  books;  but  I  did  not  see  him; 
for  my  work  was  far  from  New  York.  One 
Winter,  however,  when  I  was  spending  a 
week  in  New  York,  I  found  myself  a  fellow- 
guest  at  the  dinner  table  of  a  friend  whom 
we  happened  to  have  in  common.  Before 
the  dinner  we  chanced  to  be  thrown  together, 
and  I  forgot  that  anyone  else  was  in  the 


230        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

room.  I  seemed  to  know  a  new  Dr.  Hunt- 
ington,  whom  I  had  never  known  before.  I 
found  him  taking  hold  of  my  life,  giving 
himself  to  me — a  younger  workman  in  his 
craft — as  if  I  were  his  equal,  thus  assuming 
that  our  friendship  had  begun.  It  is  one 
of  the  thrilling  moments  of  which  one  can- 
not say  much,  when  one  is  conscious  of  win- 
ning a  noble  friend  of  whose  interest  one 
is  henceforth  perpetually  sure.  When  at 
the  table  I  found  my  seat  next  to  his,  I  was 
able  to  speak  out  to  him,  as  he  continued  to 
speak  out  to  me.  After  that  he  would  send 
me  anything  he  published,  and  I  sent  him 
anything  of  mine  which  found  its  way  to 
print.  He  never  received  these  tokens  in 
silence,  but  quickly  sent  his  estimate  of  ser- 
mon or  of  book;  so  that  I  came  to  think  as 
I  let  a  manuscript  go  to  the  printer,  "Is  this 
the  sort  of  thing  I  should  want  Dr.  Hunt- 
ington  to  read?"  His  criticism  always 
brought  me  help  and  joy. 

I  think  the  most  brilliant  words  I  ever 


Photograph  by  Henry  Havelock  Pierce,  New  York  and  Boston. 

WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON. 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      231 

heard  from  him  were  spoken  at  the  Church 
Congress  in  Pittsburgh,  in  a  discussion  on 
The  Name  of  the  Church.  He  frankly  ad- 
mitted that  the  name,  The  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  was  not  a  good  name,  but  it 
was  as  good  as  we  deserved.  It  was  in  any 
case  no  worse  than  the  name  of  our  nation, 
The  United  States  of  America.  Indeed  the 
only  perfect  names  were  the  names  which 
chemists  gave  their  compounds.  Ferrous 
Sulphate,  for  example,  fitted  like  a  glove. 
The  only  difficulty  was  that  such  exact 
names  could  be  applied  only  to  things  which 
were  dead.  Living  things  grew  up  to  names 
which  they  then  received.  Richard  the  Lion 
Heart,  Charles  the  Bold,  and  Peter  the 
Great  were  not  so  named  at  the  font.  He 
could  not  believe  that  we  could  gather  peo- 
ple into  our  pavilion  by  adopting  some  am- 
bitious name.  Neither  could  he  think  it  a 
dignified  position  in  which  to  be  found,  this 
frequent  sitting  on  the  Pope's  doorstep 
waiting  vainly  for  the  bell  to  be  answered. 


CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

We  must  be  greater  in  mind,  body,  and  soul 
— then  the  name  would  take  care  of  itself. 

People  sometimes  felt  that  he  did  not  care 
much  for  the  younger  element  in  life.  After 
this  Church  Congress  I  wrote  him  that  I 
had  tried  to  get  at  him  to  thank  him  for 
the  inspiration  of  his  paper,  but,  I  said,  I 
had  found  him  so  thronged  by  older  men 
that  I  couldn't  get  at  him.  By  the  next  post 
came  his  answer:  "I  wish  you  hadn't  given 
up.  I  don't  care  anything  about  these  older 
men.  It's  the  younger  men  I  want  to  see — 
the  men  who  have  the  future." 

In  this  connection  I  recall  that  one  of  his 
parishioners  once  told  me  how  much  he  had 
awed  her  as  a  girl.  Then  one  day  she  felt 
that  she  must  get  his  help.  She  went  to  the 
rectory,  waiting  for  her  turn  to  go  down  the 
little  staircase  into  his  study.  She  was  "all 
of  a  tremble"  as  she  went  into  the  shadows 
of  the  Gothic  room.  He  seemed  very  busi- 
nesslike as  she  began  her  story.  She  had 
come  to  ask  him  if  he  wouldn't  see  that  a 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      233 

certain  young  man  (whom  she  named) 
should  be  confirmed.  With  a  flash  of  his 
eye,  he  turned  upon  her,  suddenly  asking, 
"You're  engaged?"  "No,"  she  said,  "we 
wish  we  were."  "Why  aren't  you,  then?" 
he  said  with  a  staccato  accent.  "My  mother 
says  I'm  too  young."  "Not  a  bit  of  it,"  he 
replied  earnestly:  "I'll  see  your  mother." 
This  was  most  comforting,  and  it  was  never 
again  to  be  difficult  to  come  to  the  rectory 
for  advice.  "And  about  the  confirmation?" 
she  asked.  For  the  first  time  in  the  inter- 
view he  smiled,  and  he  said  very  gently, 
"Don't  you  really  think  the  young  man  had 
better  come  to  see  me  himself?" 

In  later  years  I  never  came  to  New  York 
without  going  to  see  him.  I  did  try  not 
to  stay  long,  but  he  did  not  know  my  pious 
intention  of  brevity,  and  I  always  marvelled 
that  he  could  settle  down  in  the  middle  of 
his  day  for  a  leisurely  talk  as  if  he  had  noth- 
ing else  to  do.  It  was  part  of  his  genius. 
Once  as  I  was  departing  he  asked  me  where 


234       CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

I  was  going.  When  I  said  that  I  was  going 
far  uptown,  he  said  that  he  too  was  off  in 
the  same  direction:  he  had  a  motor  at  the 
door — wouldn't  I  go  with  him?  As  soon  as 
the  motor  door  had  clicked  behind  us  and 
we  were  comfortably  rolling  up  the  street 
he  became  confidential.  I  spoke  of  a  very 
famous  person  whom  practically  everyone 
praised.  "I  never  liked  him,"  he  confessed 
— and  then  he  told  me  why!  We  passed 
from  person  to  person,  from  topic  to  topic. 
He  spoke  of  a  man  who  ten  years  before 
had  been,  as  everyone  thought,  utterly  com- 
monplace; who  now  had  so  grown  as  to  be, 
he  thought,  really  a  notable  leader.  He 
spoke  of  college,  of  the  Church,  of  a  man's 
loyalties.  Then  suddenly  the  motor  stopped 
before  a  palace.  His  face  was  inexpressibly 
changed.  "You  wouldn't  think,"  he  said, 
"that  grief  could  get  into  a  house  like  that 
— but  it's  there — most  terrible  grief." 

I  suppose  that  Dr.  Huntington's  public 
service  was  most  clearly  shown  in  sessions 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      235 

of    the    General    Convention.      When   the 
Prayer  Book  was  spoken  of  as  "our  incom- 
parable liturgy,"  he  persuaded  the  Church 
to  revise  it;  he  originated  the  famous  terms 
of  the  Chicago-Lambeth  Quadrilateral;  his 
was  the  wisest  and  most  constant  voice  for 
Christian  Unity.     I  may  give  only  one  in- 
stance of  his  power  in  debate  which  I  wit- 
nessed in  the  Richmond  Convention  of  1907, 
his  last  General  Convention.    Someone  had 
proposed  that  the  Church  consecrate  three 
Negro  bishops,  and  then  bid  the  Southern 
Negroes  set  up  housekeeping  for  themselves 
in  an  independent  Church.     The  Northern 
delegates   evidently   felt  that  here   was   a 
question  to  be  settled  by  the  South.     One 
Southerner  after  another  spoke  against  the 
plan.     Very  appealing  were  the  references 
to  the  Negro  "mammies,"  loved  almost  as 
mothers:  "We  can't  set  these  people  adrift," 
was  the  conclusion;  "they  belong  to  us;  they 
need  us."     We  were  all  much  moved,  and 
there  seemed  nothing  more  which  could  be 


236        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

said.  To  everyone's  surprise,  in  the  strange 
stillness  which  had  taken  hold  of  the  Con- 
vention, Dr.  Huntington  rose.  "We  have 
heard,"  he  began,  "that  the  Negro  needs 
the  white  man.  I  want  to  say  that  the  white 
man  needs  the  Negro:  we  need  his  gentle 
voice;  we  need  his  affectionate  heart;  we 
need  his  loyalty  unto  death."  The  silence 
was  intenser  still.  After  all,  the  North  had 
said  the  last  word  in  a  great  debate. 

When  he  died  he  was  one  of  the  con- 
spicuous men  of  New  York;  yet  he  had 
never  striven  nor  cried,  his  name  was  seldom 
in  the  papers,  he  never  sought  attention.  It 
was  the  thoroughness  of  his  workmanship 
which  told.  To  this  thoroughness  was  added 
another  quality  which  is  a  gift  from  God: 
he  did  the  ordinary  things  of  life  in  a  new 
way,  so  that  one  felt  that  distinction  had 
been  conferred  upon  the  commonplace,  and 
all  life  was  illumined.  His  "Thank  you" 
and  "I  am  sorry"  were  never  conventional: 
he  someway  always  brought  the  ever  new 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      237 

richness  of  his  kindness  and  sympathy  into 
them.  The  most  apt  illustration  of  this 
trait  which  I  can  recall  is  the  way  he  took 
to  show  the  sorrow  of  Grace  Church  with 
the  Hebrew  race  for  a  dreadful  tragedy 
which  had  befallen  the  Jews  in  Russia.  The 
Hebrews  of  New  York  had  organized  a 
mournful  procession  which  marched  up 
Broadway,  that  the  world  might  know  how 
much  they  cared.  All  the  time  that  the  long 
procession  was  passing,  the  bell  of  Grace 
Church  was  tolled,  and  the  Rector,  now  an 
old  man,  stood  with  bared  head  before  the 
door.  The  Jews  who  walked  past  Grace 
Church  on  that  bleak  day  will  never  forget 
the  tenderness  of  that  tribute  to  human 
brotherhood.  An  illustration  of  this  trait 
in  words  many  will  recall  is  his  dedication 
to  Bishop  Huntington,  his  old  Rector, 
under  whom  he  began  his  ministry  (it  was 
inscribed  in  the  last  volume  of  sermons 
which  he  published) :  "To  the  memory  of 
Frederic  Dan  Huntington,  Bishop,  Doctor 


238        CERTAIN  AMERICAN  FACES 

in  Divinity,  Doctor  of  Letters  and  of  Laws, 
Father  in  God  to  many  souls  and  to  mine." 
The  very  simplicity  of  it  is  startling. 

When  all  is  recorded  of  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton's  public  service  as  a  citizen  and  as  a 
Churchman,  I  suspect  that  those  who  knew 
him  would  claim  for  his  private  conversa- 
tion and  companionship  the  highest  mani- 
festation of  his  work  in  the  world.  That  is 
because  he  was  pre-eminently  a  Christian 
pastor.  Through  a  strange  turn  of  events 
I  was  to  know  intimately  many  of  those  who 
knew  him  best.  Through  them  I  came  to 
open  a  new  chapter  in  my  friendship  witB 
Dr.  Huntington,  for  I  was  to  find  him, 
though  seemingly  dead  to  this  world,  alto- 
gether alive  in  the  hearts  of  his  friends. 
And  there  I  have  learned  the  depth  of  his 
sincerity,  the  perseverance  of  his  watchful 
care,  the  blaze  of  his  righteous  scorn,  the 
patience  of  his  hope,  his  unforgetting  love. 
I  was  sitting  one  night  with  one  of  his 
parishioners  and  friends,  when  I  spoke  my 


WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON      239 

reverence  for  his  former  rector:  the  light 
kindled  in  the  eyes  of  my  friend,  as  he  said 
simply,  "Huntington  saw  the  right — and  he 
did  it — always." 


M180044 


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